2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 14 October 2024.

The citation

The citation reads: "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Daron Acemoglu was born in 1967 in Istanbul, Turkey, and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. Simon Johnson was born in 1963 in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. James A. Robinson was born in 1960, and is affiliated with the University of Chicago, Chicago.

Why it matters

The three economists showed how institutions set up in colonial times help explain why some countries are rich and others poor. Johnson and Robinson were both born in Britain.

The prize

The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895. Strictly, this award is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, but is presented alongside the Nobel Prizes.