US-based economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize for their work in fighting poverty that has helped millions of children around the world.

Key points: One of the winners, Esther Duflo, is only the second woman to win the prize

One of the winners, Esther Duflo, is only the second woman to win the prize The winner's work focuses on areas such as education and healthcare

The winner's work focuses on areas such as education and healthcare More than 60 million children across India and Africa have benefited from the trio's work

French-American Ms Duflo becomes only the second female economics winner in the prize's 50-year history, as well as the youngest at 46.

She shared the award equally with Indian-born American Mr Banerjee — who is also her husband — and Mr Kremer, also of the United States.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work had shown how poverty could be addressed by breaking it down into smaller and more precise questions in areas such as education and healthcare, making problems easier to solve.

Esther Duflo shared the economics prize, just the second woman to feature in 50 years. ( AP: Jose Vicente )

It said the results of their studies and field experiments had ranged from helping millions of Indian schoolchildren with remedial tutoring, to encouraging governments around the world to increase funding for preventative medicine.

"It starts from the idea that the poor are often reduced to caricatures and even the people that try to help them do not actually understand what are the deep roots of [their] problems," Ms Duflo said.

"Our goal is to make sure that the fight against poverty is based on scientific evidence," she added of an approach that has included evaluating the impact of often obvious-sounding problems such as a lack of textbooks or teacher absence.

The team have notably been associated with the 'Teaching at the right level' program, which has helped 60 million children in India and Africa and focuses on maths and reading skills for primary school pupils.

Ms Duflo said the importance of the two most commonly cited approaches to tackling poverty — foreign aid and freeing up trade with poor countries — had often been "overstated".

While the United Nations estimates that global poverty has been cut by more than half since 2000, it says one in 10 people in developing regions still live on less than $US1.90 a day. In sub-Saharan Africa, that proportion is 42 per cent.

Asked whether Ms Duflo's award was an attempt to redress the gender imbalance in the prize's history, Peter Fredriksson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Economic Sciences, said it showed that women were now more present in economics.

Ms Duflo remarked that it came at an "extremely important and opportune time" for women in a sector that has traditionally been very male-dominated.

"We are at a time when we are starting to realise in the profession that the way that we [treat] each other privately and publicly is not conducive all the time for a very good environment for women," she said.

The nine-million Swedish crown ($US915,300) economics prize was a later addition to the five awards created in the will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, established by the Swedish central bank and first awarded in 1969.

Economics was the last of the awards to be announced with the winners for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace having been unveiled over the past week.

The 2018 Nobel Economics Prize was jointly awarded to US economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, pioneers in adapting the western economic growth model to focus on environmental issues and sharing the benefits of technology.

Married couple woken by good news

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 35 seconds 35 s US-based economists win Nobel Economics Prize

Mr Banerjee and Ms Duflo said they weren't quite sure how to react when the married couple's Nobel Economics Prize wake-up call came.

Ms Duflo said when the phone rang early Monday, she answered and was told it was an important call from Sweden.

"Well, since you've now woken me up, go ahead," she said was her response.

Mr Bannerjee said the Nobel committee asked about getting one of the married partners on a conference call, but "they said they wanted a woman, and I didn't qualify" — so he went back to bed.

The pair recounted the call at a news conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where they work.

MIT spokeswoman Kimberley Allen cautioned reporters not to refer to the pair as "Abhijit Banerjee and his wife." She suggested "Esther Duflo and her husband."

The couple said they hope their win will open more doors for research into poverty, explaining they are among about 400 experts worldwide who are focused on the area.

Reuters