Very very happy and delighted : Amartya Sen

Sen had won the same award in 1998 for his contribution to welfare economics.

Speaking to PTI from Boston, Sen said Im very very happy and delighted that Abhijit Banerjee along with others have been awarded with the Nobel for Economics, he told PTI.

58-year-old Banerjee bagged the coveted prize jointly with his wife Esther Duflo and another economist Michael Kremer for his "experimental approach to alleviating global poverty".

I think that the prize has been given to the most competent persons, Sen said.

Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

86-year-old Sen currently serves as professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University, from where Banerjee received his PhD in 1988.