Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have decided to leave the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and join the University of Zurich (UZH), the Swiss university has announced.
Banerjee and Duflo were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2019, along with economist Michael Kremer, for their “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. They will join the faculty of business, economics and informatics at the UZH in July next year.
The decision by Banerjee and Duflo came against the backdrop of what is perceived as a crackdown by the Donald Trump administration on liberal thinking across educational institutions in the US. The Trump administration has been persuading leading universities in the US to accept its proposal to put a cap on international students and restrict comments by university leaders at public events.
The Trump administration wants the universities to limit international students to 15 per cent of the total students, and students from a particular country to 5 per cent. The universities have to report to the government about any foreign student displaying hostility towards the US. The administration also wants universities to prevent campus protests and create an environment where conservative ideas can be freely expressed.
Violation of these conditions means the universities will have to return their federal funds and private donations to the benefactors. MIT on Friday rejected the proposal, saying it would curtail freedom of expression in the institution.
The Telegraph has sent separate emails to Banerjee and Duflo seeking comments on whether their decision to leave MIT was influenced by the crackdown. Their responses are awaited.
In a media statement, the UZH said Duflo and Banerjee would each assume an endowed professorship funded by the Lemann Foundation and continue advancing their research on development economics and the impact of policy measures and interventions on education, poverty and health. They will retain part-time positions at MIT, it said.
Duflo and Banerjee will establish and co-lead the new Lemann Centre for Development, Education and Public Policy at the UZH’s department of economics, it said.
“The goal of the centre will be to foster policy-relevant research, create new higher education pathways in the field of policy evaluation and development, and connect researchers and education policymakers worldwide. It will have a specific focus on fostering the relationship between the UZH and researchers and policymakers in Brazil,” said the statement issued on Friday.
According to the statement, the two researchers also plan to expand the ADEPT programme, which provides access to high-quality online classes and residential education for those who qualify based on performance, to the UZH. The ADEPT programme was originally launched by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a worldwide network of over 1,000 researchers that Duflo and Banerjee co-founded, focused on cutting-edge methods in programme evaluation and development research.
“The new Lemann Centre will enable us to build on and expand our work, which bridges academic research, student mentorship and real-world policy impact,” said the statement quoting Duflo.
“I am especially enthusiastic about contributing to making the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics at UZH an even more attractive place,” said the statement quoting Banerjee.
