Kolkata, Oct 14 (IANS): An "overjoyed" West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday congratulated Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee for winning the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics.

Banerjee, an Indian-American, jointly bagged the prestigious award along with his wife Esther Duflo and economist Michael Kremer.

"Hearty congratulations to Abhijit Banerjee, alumnus of South Point School & Presidency College Kolkata, for winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Another Bengali has done the nation proud. We are overjoyed," Banerjee said in a tweet.

Announcing the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the research conducted by Banerjee, his wife and one-time Ph.D student Duflo, and Harvard professor Kremer has considerably improved the ability to fight global poverty.

Born in Mumbai in 1961, Bannerjee is one of the leading development economists and is presently working as a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His wife is also a professor there.