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Updated: Oct 14, 2019 19:23 IST

Congratulations poured in forIndian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee and his French-American wife Esther Duflo for winning the Nobel prize in Economics along with Michael Kremer on Monday. The 58-year-old economist is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was among the first few political leaders to laud Banerjee’s work. “Abhijit Banerjee’s pathbreaking work has benefitted lakhs of children studying in Delhi government schools. One of Delhi government’s most important educational reforms ‘Chunauti’ has transformed classroom teaching in government schools. It is based on the model developed by him,” Kejriwal wrote on micro-blogging platform Twitter.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee too congratulated Banerjee for winning the coveted prize. “Hearty congratulations to Abhijit Banerjee, alumnus of South Point School & Presidency College, Kolkata, for winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Another Bengali has done the nation proud. We are overjoyed,” the Trinamool Congress chief said in a tweet.

Not to be left behind, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi too reacted to Banerjee’s big win and at the same time took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, “Congratulations to Abhijit Banerjee on winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Abhijit helped conceptualize NYAY that had the power to destroy poverty and boost the Indian economy. Instead, we now have Modinomics, that’s destroying the economy and boosting poverty.

Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer bagged the award for his “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”.

Banerjee is an alumunus of South Point School in Kolkata and Presidency University where he completed his B.Sc degree in economics in 1981. He received his PhD in 1988 from Harvard University.

“Delighted to hear that Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Richly deserved. Abhijit is a proud graduate of that much-maligned university, JNU, and his work has inspired many younger Indian scholars,” historian Ramachandra Guha wrote on Twitter.

The historian also mentioned the Indian-American economist’s parents in his congratulatory message. “Abhijit‘s father, Dipak Banerjee, was a much admired teacher of Economics at Presidency College. His mother, Nirmala Banerjee, is a pioneering feminist economist,” Guha said.

In a press statement, the MIT said, the “work of Duflo and Banerjee has emphasised the use of field experiments in research, to bring the principles of laboratory-style randomised, controlled trials to empirical economics.”

“They have studied a wide range of topics implicated in global poverty, including health care provision, education, agriculture, and gender attitudes, while developing new antipoverty programs based on their research,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.

In a tweet earlier in the day, the MIT had congratulated the economists on winning the 2019 Nobel prize in Economics .