Ideas for a Fairer World
Good research can change lives. The work of Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee is a prime example of this. For years, the two development economists have been working to combat poverty by carrying out carefully designed field experiments around the world. These studies often yield surprising results. In Kenya, for example, the researchers found that deworming treatments helped children attend school more regularly, improving their prospects for higher incomes and better health later in life.
Many such studies have since been conducted at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT in Boston, which Duflo and Banerjee co-founded. In recognition of their groundbreaking research, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics. This summer, the two Nobel laureates will join UZH, where they will continue their work. The new issue of UZH Magazin features an interview with Duflo and Banerjee as part of a dossier exploring how research can help make the world a fairer place.
Protein factories and fun with math
As always, the magazine also covers a range of additional topics, including the fascinating world of natural numbers, pioneering research on protein synthesis, and the digital corpus of ancient inscriptions. Selected articles will appear on our website in English in the coming weeks.