A trio bringing up the rear of the Nobel 2024 ball. This Monday, the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to the American-Turkish Daron Acemoglu and the Anglo-Americans Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for their research on “the how institutions are formed and the prosperity” of different countries.
“Reducing the huge income differences between countries is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The winners have shown the importance of institutions in achieving this,” declared Jakob Svensson, chairman of the economic sciences prize committee in a press release.
“This year’s winners have pioneered new approaches, both empirical and theoretical, that have significantly advanced our understanding of global inequality,” he added.
Today, “the 20% of the richest countries in the world are now around 30 times richer than the poorest 20%” according to the study by the three researchers published on the Nobel Prize website.
By examining the different political and economic systems introduced by European colonizers, the three economists were able to highlight a link between institutions and prosperity, the committee said in its press release.
A shared book
“This is a real shock and extraordinary news. Thank you,” rejoiced Daron Acemoglu, 57, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as did Simon Johnson, 61. James A. Robinson, 64, is a professor at the University of Chicago.
In 2012, he co-wrote with Daron Acemoglu “Prosperity, power and poverty: why some countries succeed better than others” in which they “show how the development of institutions, sometimes due to very accidental circumstances, produces enormous consequences”, described Kenneth Arrow, a former professor at Stanford University and winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in economics.
The work has thus become one of the references in economic literature and was even on the New York Times bestseller list in 2012.
The trio of researchers thus succeeds Claudia Goldin, professor of economics at Harvard rewarded for her work on the evolution of women’s place in the job market and their income. Like all the winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson will receive a check for 11 million crowns (920,000 euros), to be shared in the event of multiple winners.