Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2019 goes to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer

Abhijit Banarjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2019 for their "experimental approach to alleviating global poverty," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced Monday.

Duflo, who phoned into the news conference where the prize was announced, said receiving it was "incredibly humbling." The 46-year-old, born in Paris, is the youngest person ever and only the second woman to receive the economics prize. The first was Elinor Ostrom in 2009.

"The essence of our research is to try to make sure, our goal is too make sure that the fight against poverty is based on scientific evidence," Duflo said at a news conference shortly after finding out about her win. "Often the poor are reduced to caricatures, and often even people that try to help them often do not actually understand what are the deep root of the problems that are addressing the poor."

"This year's Laureates have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty," the academy said in statement.

Banarjee and Duflo are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Banarjee is Indian-American and Duflo, who is French-American, is only the second woman ever to receive the economics Nobel. The two economists are married to each other. Kremer, an American, is the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard.

"We are at a time when we are starting to realize in the profession that the way that we conduct each other privately and publicly is not conducive all the time to a very good environment for women," Duflo said. "Showing that it is possible for a woman to succeed and be recognized for success, I hope it is going to inspire many many other women to continue working and many, many other men to give them the respect that they deserve like every single human being."

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The prize this year is worth 9 million Swedish crown ($915,300).