This year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (yes, we all know it’s not technically a Nobel Prize, but it’s treated just the same) goes to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer for their studies of poverty. The surprise, especially perhaps for Duflo, isn’t that a Nobel was awarded to these people and this work but rather how early in their careers it came. As with Paul Krugman’s award some time back, it’s the year and the youth that surprises, for it is excellent work that all pundits had marked on their cards for recognition at some point.

As to what the work actually is, well, it’s for doing science. We’re often told economics isn’t quite science. This obviously starts with theory, but it’s wealth we’ve got to explain, not poverty, for poverty is the natural state of mankind. Thus we’re looking for reasons why people and places don’t get rich, not for who or what has caused them to become poor.