Nobel-winning economics professors Banerjee and Duflo to join the University of Zurich in July 2026
The couple will continue part-time roles at MIT
MIT Professors of Economics Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo PhD ’99 will join the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Informatics at the University of Zurich (UZH) in July 2026, according to a UZH press release on Oct. 10, 2025. At UZH, the couple will assume an endowed professorship funded by the Lemann Foundation, which will allow them to continue their research on development economics and policy research.
Banerjee and Duflo were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for their contributions to development economics and anti-poverty research. Their research has covered a wide range of topics across the world, from HIV prevention in Africa to microlending programs in India. They were co-founders of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global research network established in 2003 in which researchers conduct field experiments related to poverty alleviation.
The two have been at MIT for around 30 years. Banerjee joined the MIT faculty in 1993, after teaching at Princeton from 1988 to 1992, and then at Harvard for a year. Duflo entered MIT in 1995 as a graduate student, earned her PhD in 1999, and then joined the MIT faculty the same year.
According to MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen, Banerjee and Duflo will continue to be involved in the MIT economics department and co-lead J-PAL despite their move to UZH. Banerjee will spend part of the academic year at MIT and continue to teach and advise graduate students. Duflo will transition to a Professor of the Practice and help administer the MIT’s Department of Economics program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP).
Their decision to leave MIT and the U.S. for UZH comes during a perilous time for both higher education in the United States and global anti-poverty work. This year, the federal government officially shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provides humanitarian and medical aid in developing countries. In March 2025, Duflo co-signed an op-ed in the French newspaper Le Monde criticizing the Trump administration for their attacks on scientific research and academic freedom.
Other prominent professors in the U.S. have left the country to take on faculty positions elsewhere. This year, three professors left Yale University to go to the University of Toronto because of their shared concerns regarding the Trump administration’s attack on universities. For similar reasons, economics professor Matthias Doepke left Northwestern University this year and is now a faculty member at the London School of Economics.