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Economist Esther Duflo named winner of Spain's Princess of Asturias Social Sciences Award

Xinhua, May 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

- Economist Esther Duflo was named as the winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences on Wednesday.

The 42--year--old Franco--American is the second of this year's award winners to be named. Last week, film director Francis Ford Coppola was denominated as the winner of the arts prize.

Duflo, who was nominated last year, was praised for "her innovative and decisive contributions in the economy of development and the study of policies against poverty."

She is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teaching the reduction of poverty and development economies. The jury decided that the "results of her investigations have profoundly renewed the design of strategies in the fields of education, health, micro--finance and employment."

Duflo is famous for her work, "Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty," which was published in 2011.

The Princess of Asturias Awards are the most prestigious awards in Spain and carry a 50,000 euro cash prize (around 56,000 U.S. dollars) and a statue by artist Joan Miro. The awards are presented at a glamorous awards ceremony in the city of Oviedo in October.

The awards are handed out in eight different categories: arts, social sciences, sport, concord, literature, international cooperation, technical and scientific research and communications and humanities. Endit