Nobel Prize: Trio win 2024 award for economics

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson were picked for their studies on how institutions shape the economic success of nations. The $1 million prize was announced at a news conference in Stockholm.

The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded on Monday to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for their studies into why some countries succeed and others fail.

The winners were announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a news conference in Stockholm, marking the end of the 2024 Nobel season after prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were awarded last week.

The economics award is worth 11 million Swedish kronor (roughly $1 million; €0.92 million) — the same as the other Nobel categories.

Who are this year's winners?

Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson are highly influential economists and political scientists, particularly known for their collaborations on the relationship between political institutions, economic development, and long-term prosperity.

Acemoglu and Johnson are professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), while Robinson works for the University of Chicago.

"Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time's greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country's prosperity," Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences said.

"Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better," the award organizers added on their website.

Acemoglu and Johnson recently published the book 'Why Nations Fail,' which looks at wealth inequality between nations. The pair surveyed technology through the ages and demonstrated how some technological advances were better at creating jobs and spreading wealth than others.

Addressing the news conference by phone from Athens, Greece, Acemoglu said he was "surprised and shocked" at the win.

Economics a latecomer to the Nobel series

The Nobel Prize in Economics was not among the five Nobel Prizes established by the late Swedish chemist, inventor, businessman and engineer Alfred Nobel in his will in 1895.

It was created in 1968 by an endowment from Sweden's central bank and was first awarded the following year. 

The winner is decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which follows the same selection process as for the other Nobel prizes. 

Between 1969 and 2023, the economics prize has been won 55 times by 93 laureates.

Before Monday's announcement, the United States had achieved the most Nobel economics laureates, with 68 academics picking up the prize over the past 55 years, followed by the United Kingdom with 11 and Canada and France tied with four.

Friedman, Hayek, Bernanke among previous laureates

Last year's prize went to US economist and Harvard University professor Claudia Goldin for her research into the role of women in the labor market. Goldin is one of only three women to be awarded the prize and was the first woman to win solo.

Among the most famous economics laureates were Friedrich Hayek in 1974, who argued in defense of free-market capitalism, Milton Friedman, who won in 1976 for his work on monetarism, and Amartya Sen in 1998, known for his work in welfare economics.

Former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke was one of three laureates announced in 2022, for his analysis of the 1929-1939 Great Depression.

Economics continues to court controversy

The prize remains controversial as one of Nobel's descendants, Swedish human rights lawyer Peter Nobel, insists that the late inventor's family had no intention of recognizing economics.

Nobel was known for his interest in humanitarian and scientific endeavors, not economics, his great-grandnephew has said.

The prize has also been accused of having an ideological bias toward certain economic schools of thought.

Critics have denounced some previous winners for putting forward theories that led to negative societal impacts, including inequality and financial instability.

The formal name of the award is the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

The trio will be presented with the certificates, awards and prize money at ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

mm/rmt (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)