By Jeanna Smialek
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded Monday to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago.
They received the prize for their work on the gaps in prosperity between nations, and for their research on how institutions affect prosperity.
The laureates used both theory and data to better explain inequality between countries, according to the prize committee.
“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges,” Jakob Svensson, chair of the economics prize committee, said in a statement. “The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.”
Their research has shown that the institutions that were introduced during European colonization have helped to shape economic outcomes in the once-colonized countries in the time since.
“Rather than asking whether colonialism is good or bad, we note that different colonial strategies have led to different institutional patterns that have persisted over time,” Acemoglu said during a news conference after the prize was announced.
Their findings suggest that inclusive institutions tend to put countries on a pathway to longer-term prosperity, while extractive ones — designed to keep those in power in control — provide short-term gains for the people in power.
“Broadly speaking, the work that we have done favors democracy,” Acemoglu said. “But democracy is not a panacea.”
Democracy can be hard to introduce, he noted, and there are pathways to growth for countries that are not democracies, including rapidly tapping a nation’s resources to ramp up economic progress.
But he said that “more authoritarian growth” is often more unstable and less innovative.
Acemoglu has long topped lists of who might win a Nobel, but he said the award was not something that one could anticipate.
“You dream of having a good career, but this is over and on top of that,” Acemoglu said, calling into the news conference from Athens, Greece. “It’s a great surprise and honor.”
Who was awarded the economics prize in 2023?
Last year, Claudia Goldin was awarded for her research uncovering the reasons for gender gaps in labor force participation and earnings.
Who else received a prize this year?
— The Nobel in physiology or medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, which helps determine how cells develop and function.
— The award for physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for discoveries that helped computers learn more in the way that the human brain does, providing the building blocks for developments in artificial intelligence.
— The prize for chemistry was shared between Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google, who used AI to predict the structure of millions of proteins; and David Baker, who used computer software to invent a new protein.
— The literature prize went to Han Kang, the first writer from South Korea to receive the award, for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas.”
— The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese grassroots movement Nihon Hidankyo, which for decades has represented hundreds of thousands of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
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