The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics is announced in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 14, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided on Monday to award the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson.
This trio, consisting of Acemoglu and Johnson from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Robinson from the University of Chicago, has been honored "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity."
Jakob Svensson, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, stated that the laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions in achieving the goal of reducing income differences between countries.
The laureates' research contributes to the understanding that "societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better," the committee stated in a press release.
Daron Acemoglu was born in 1967 in Istanbul, Türkiye. He earned his PhD in 1992 from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the United States. Simon Johnson, born in 1963 in Sheffield, the United Kingdom, received his PhD in 1989 from MIT and is also a professor there. James A. Robinson, born in 1960, obtained his PhD in 1993 from Yale University and is a professor at the University of Chicago, IL, USA.
The prize includes 11 million Swedish Krona (approximately 1 million U.S. dollars). Established in 1968 by Sweden's central bank Sveriges Riksbank, the prize has been awarded since 1969 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects the laureates in economic sciences.