Poor Economics, which champions radical new ways of tackling global poverty, is the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year. Abhijit Banerjee received the £30,000 award on behalf of his co-author Esther Duflo at a dinner in London on Thursday.

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times and chair of the panel of judges, said he had been “blown away by the thoroughness of [Banerjee and Duflo’s] empirical research. This is going to be a real basis for innovation in policy, innovation in government, and a guide to intellectual debate. This is a business book in the broadest sense”. Read more about the winning book and watch an interview with Abhijit Banerjee.

Poor Economics is published by Perseus Books in the UK and PublicAffairs in the US

The authors of the five other books on the shortlist each receive £10,000. The other shortlisted books are: Exorbitant Privilege by Barry Eichengreen; Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt; The Quest by Daniel Yergin; Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser; and Wilful Blindess by Margaret Heffernan.

The judging panel this year included Vindi Banga, partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The other judges were: Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice, London Business School; Mario Monti, President of Bocconi University, Milan, European chairman of the Trilateral Commission, honorary president of Bruegel; Jorma Ollila, chairman of Nokia and Royal Dutch Shell; Shriti Vadera, director of Shriti Vadera Ltd, non-executive director of BHP Billiton and AstraZeneca.

Now in its seventh year, the award is firmly established as a feature of the business and publishing calendars. Lord Patten of Barnes, chairman of the BBC Trust, was the keynote speaker at this year’s awards ceremony and dinner – attended by top names from the worlds of finance, economics, business, media and publishing.

Further reading
Business Book of the Year: ‘Poor Economics’
E-books rewrite an industry