Three US Economists Win Nobel Prize

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for their research into why some countries succeed while others fail, Daniel Niemann and Mike Corder reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The economics prize is formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. I Illustration: Niklas Elmehed, Nobel Prize Facebook

The Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the three economists “have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity.”

Societies with poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population, it added, do not generate growth or progress.

Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), while Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.

Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, noted, “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 achieving this.”

Their research has provided “a deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”

The economics prize is formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 to honor Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.