I'd worked at the World Bank briefly as an undergrad and studied poverty levels around the world - particularly those earning less than $1.25 a day.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I studied international relations and economics at the University of Virginia. I paid my way by working as a bartender in the summer and at three part-time jobs during the year.
I studied chemical engineering. I was a good student, but these were the hard times of the depression, my scholarship came to an end, and it was necessary to work to supplement the family income.
I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.
I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
I've never experienced chronic poverty, but I know what it's like to live on £3 a week.
I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.
It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I'd actually say that I don't think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.
The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree.
I was a professor at Princeton University. And, in that capacity, I studied for many years the role of financial crisis in the economy.
When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.