Il Nobel Prize for Economics 2024 has been assigned to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for their “studies on the formation of institutions and their influence on prosperity” in various countries. This was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Economic Sciences, which awarded the last of the coveted prizes for 2024 to three experts, the first two working at the MIT in Boston, the third at the University of Chicago.
Nobel Prize for Economics 2024
“Reducing the huge income differences between countries is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of social institutions in achieving this goal,” said Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee.
In detail, the Nobel was awarded to the three economists for their studies on how colonization, by introducing new models of society, influenced in one way or another the prosperity in colonized countries. The general conclusion is – as explained by the Academy – that “societies with a weak rule of law and institutions that exploited the population do not generate growth or positive change. The research of the three winners helps us understand why”.
“When Europeans colonized large parts of the earth,” reads a note from the Swedish Academy, “the institutions of societies changed, sometimes dramatically, but not everywhere in the same way. In some countries, the aim was to exploit the population and extract resources for the benefit of the colonizers, creating only short-term benefits “for those in power: as long as the political system guarantees them control, no one will believe their promises of future economic reforms.” In other countries, colonial powers formed “inclusive economic and political systems” that over time produced “generally prosperous societies.”
Who are the three Nobel Prize winners in economics 2024?
Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish economist of Armenian origin, naturalized American, 57 years old. He has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for 31 years and during his long career he has carried out studies regarding the theory of growth to labor economics, inequality in income distribution to worker training, up to applied mathematics.
Simon Johnson, 61, is a British economist, naturalized American. He also works at MIT, after having been an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2007 to 2008. In 2020, Johnson was appointed a volunteer member of the Agency Review Team in the transition phase of the Biden presidency for the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.
Finally there is James A. Robinson, British, 64 years old, economist, political scientist and professor at the Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
