It was a special win for Michael Kremer on Monday, October 14, when the Nobel Prize for Economics was announced, of which he was one of the recipients for his work on “an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”, a project he conducted in the country.
The Harvard University gazzette mentioned that Kremer, a Professor of Developing Societies in the Department of Economics at the University, shared the prize with Abhijit Banerjee, and Esther Duflo of Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT).
Starting in the mid-1990s, Kremer began testing ways to improve school results in Western Kenya, which he claimed had borne the brunt of poverty and inequality.
His research came to the conclusion that access to extra textbooks did not improve most student outcomes in the region, suggesting that a simple lack of resources was not the main impediment to learning.
He narrated that poverty in the society led to inadequate nutrition, sanitation and in effect education . His recommendations were that the government improves the living standards of its citizens, a matter that he stated would improve the students’ performance in school.
Speaking to Bloomberg after his win, Kremer intimated that his initial projects in Kenya came about from conversations with his friends at nonprofit organizations who wanted to better understand the effectiveness of their programs.
“Michael Kremer’s path-breaking work not only opened up new ways to think about development economics, but it has also helped alleviate poverty for millions around the world and shown the power of economics to make a tangible, positive difference in people’s lives,” Harvard President Larry Bacow was quoted after Kremer won the award.
Banerjee and Duflo, the other winners, were reported to have later worked on similar studies in other countries, sometimes with Kremer, on a variety of problems in other countries, including access to credit and agricultural fertilizer subsidies.
The award recognized their work on reducing poverty by breaking down larger problems, such as deficiencies in education and child health, into component pieces, then designing targeted field experiments to determine the most effective solutions.
The cash prize for the Nobel prize is about Ksh110 million. Sometimes this goes to a single individual or the prize may be split between two or three recipients.
The exact weight of a Nobel medal varies, but each medal is 18 karats green gold plated with 24 karats (pure) gold, with an average weight of around 175 grams. Back in 2012, 175 grams of gold was worth Ksh997,500. The modern Nobel Prize medal is worth in excess of Ksh1 million.
In 2015, Nobel laureate Leon Max Lederman’s Nobel prize medal sold at auction for Ksh76,500,000. Lederman’s family used the money to pay for medical bills associated with the scientist’s battle with dementia.
Video of Michael Kermer’s interview courtesy of Bloomberg
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBXHaXUCUM?autoplay=0&start=0&rel=0&w=854&h=480]
