Michael Kremer

Kremer shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. The Nobel committee cited their use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to identify which development interventions actually work in practice.

Kremer pioneered the use of RCTs in development economics, applying medical trial methods to social programs by randomly assigning treatment and control groups to measure causal impacts. This approach allowed researchers to test specific hypotheses about poverty interventions—such as whether deworming pills improve school attendance—with rigorous empirical evidence.

Kremer's influential research in Kenya showed that school-based deworming treatment dramatically improved school attendance and health outcomes at very low cost. The studies found that treating intestinal worm infections increased school participation by at least 25 percentage points, influencing global health policy and donor funding for deworming programs.

Kremer is a professor at the University of Chicago, having previously taught at Harvard University and MIT. He co-founded Innovations for Poverty Action and helped establish the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, which promotes the use of randomized evaluations in development policy.