The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for their research on the role of societal institutions in shaping economic growth.
Their work offers insights into why nations with weak rule of law and exploitative institutions often fail to achieve sustainable development.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in announcing the award in Stockholm, highlighted how the three economists “have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity.”
Acemoglu and Johnson are professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.
Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson, seen on screen, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. Their work offers insights into why nations with weak rule of law and exploitative institutions often fail to achieve sustainable development.
Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/AP
“Reducing the vast income disparities between countries is one of the great challenges of our time,” said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Prize Committee for Economic Sciences.
He said that the laureates’ research has provided “a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”
Acemoglu, 57, heard about his win while in Athens, Greece, where he was attending a conference.
“You never expect something like this,” he told reporters.
Acemoglu said that their work highlights the critical role of democratic institutions in fostering growth.
“Broadly speaking, the work that we have done favors democracy,” he said, though “democracy is not a panacea. Introducing democracy is very hard, and elections can sometimes spark conflict.”
Acemoglu was asked about the economic rise of countries like China.
He acknowledged that authoritarian regimes might see short-term gains, but added that “these regimes are likely to face greater challenges in achieving long-term sustainable innovation.”
Acemoglu and Robinson are perhaps best known for their 2012 bestseller, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
In it, they argue that human-made institutions, rather than geography or culture, are the primary drivers of economic success or failure.
One of the key examples in their research is the comparison of Nogales, a city divided by the U.S.-Mexico border.
On the U.S. side in Arizona, residents generally enjoy better education, wealth, and governance, while those in Sonora, Mexico, face greater poverty and corruption.
The economists said that the difference lies in the institutional structures, with the U.S. providing stronger protections for property rights and allowing more political participation.
Acemoglu voiced concerns about the weakening of democratic institutions in Western nations, particularly in the U.S. and Europe.
“Democracies underperform when the population feels they are not delivering,” he said, stressing the need for these systems to reclaim public trust.
“This is a time when democracies are going through a rough patch. It is, in some sense, quite crucial that they reclaim the high ground of better governance.”
The prize, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank to honor the founder of the original Nobel Prizes.
While the economics prize is not technically one of the original five, it is presented alongside the others each year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
Last week, the awards for peace, physics, literature, chemistry and medicine were announced.
On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors from the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in recognition of its decades-long activism against nuclear weapons.
John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics for their contributions to machine learning.
South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, recognized for what the Nobel committee described as “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
The Nobel Prize in chemistry included a U.S. scientist, David Baker, who along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, were recognized for their groundbreaking work in predicting and designing protein structures, the essential building blocks of life.
American researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press
