Solari Lecture 2023 by Professor Esther Duflo (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2019)

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Thursday 12 October 2023 | 6 pm (doors open 5:30 pm) | Auditorium Arditi (Av. du Mail 1, Geneva)

The Solari Lecture 2023 will welcome Professor Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2019. She will address the topic: Good Economics for Warmer Times.

Climate change is not just about getting the right technology. It is also about changing behavior and policies. And it is not (only) about the end of the world: it is also about the damage it does, today, mainly to poor people around the world. In this lecture, Professor Duflo will discuss some of what we know about the impact of climate change on poor countries, and what we know and what we do not know about changing behavior and policies.

Professor Duflo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. In her research, she seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment, and governance.

The Solari Lecture welcomes distinguished guests specialized in economics and econometrics, in memory of Luigi Solari, professor at the University of Geneva and pioneer in introducing research in econometrics in Switzerland. Since its first edition in 1979, this conference has featured several notable guest speakers, e.g., Jan Tinbergen, Richard Stone, Robert Engle, Bengt Holmstrom, and Jean Tirole.

> Watch the recording of the Solari Lecture 2023.

Biography

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In her research, she seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment, and governance.

Professor Duflo's first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris. She subsequently received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1999.

Professor Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes including the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (with co-Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer), the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2015), the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize (2014), the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), a John Bates Clark Medal (2010), and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship (2009). With Abhijit Banerjee, she wrote Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages, and Good Economics for Hard Times. Recently, she wrote Afia, Bibir, Neso y Najy, Nilou, and Oola a series of illustrated books for children to discuss the theme of poverty.

Duflo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and holds a Chair at the College de France since 2023.