Economics Nobel Trio Found That Inclusive Countries Prosper

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson take home top economics prize
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 14, 2024 5:44 AM CDT
Economics Nobel Trio Examined What Makes Countries Prosper
A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference in Stockholm on Oct. 3, 2022.   (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for research into differences in prosperity between nations. The three economists "have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country's prosperity," the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said, per the AP. Countries with more "inclusive institutions" have, over time, enjoyed prosperity, while those with more "extractive institutions" have seen lower economic growth, their work found, per CNN. "Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better. The laureates' research helps us understand why," the Nobel Committee added, per the AP.

The announcement was made Monday in Stockholm. Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago. The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes. Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, it's always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896. Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace.

(More Nobel Prize in economics stories.)

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