Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”.
Al Jazeera reports that the award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was awarded on Monday in Stockholm. It is the final prize to be given out this year, and is worth $1.1m.
Acemoglu and Robinson are renowned for their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012.
Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement: “Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges.
“The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.”
All three winners work in the United States. Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.
Al Jazeera quotes economics analyst and CEO of the Centre for Economics and Business Research Nina Skero as saying: “Some of their work looks at time periods of colonisation and the types of institutions that countries that were colonisers implemented in those colonies.
“They’re saying that if you look at [it] historically … places where colonial powers implemented better institutions, … ended up faring better and generating more wealth, particularly in periods of time when industrialisation came around.”