J-PAL co-founder Esther Duflo elected president of the Paris School of Economics

Community Jameel congratulates Professor Esther Duflo, co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and 2019 Nobel laureate in economics, on becoming president of the Paris School of Economics (PSE).

Elected unanimously by the PSE board, Esther succeeds the late Daniel Cohen, who died in August 2023 and co-founded the PSE in 2006 with Thomas Piketty.

Esther is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds the Poverty and Public Policy chair at the Collège de France. In addition to the Nobel Prize in Economics, which she shared with her J-PAL co-founder Abhijit Banerjee and their long-time collaborator Michael Kremer, Esther's awards include the John Bates Clark Medal, the Infosys Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Esther Duflo, J-PAL co-founder and president of the PSE, said: "It is with great emotion that I take over the presidency of PSE, a unique institution that has transformed the face of economics in Paris, in a house where I grew up and discovered economics. A great deal has already been achieved to ensure that, from the six founding institutions, a coherent whole has emerged, with remarkable power in teaching, research and public life. Together with the management team, I hope to be able to preserve and bring this ensemble to life, and continue to anchor it in the higher education and research landscape in France and around the world."

The PSE hosts the J-PAL Europe regional office, which is led by Cillian Nolan, executive director, and delivers the European Social Inclusion Initiative (ESII), launched in 2019 with Community Jameel and Porticus. ESII is a pillar of J-PAL Europe's work to support migrants and refugees, alongside the Displaced Livelihoods Initiative, which is supported by the IKEA Foundation and co-delivered with Innovations for Poverty Action.