Nobel Prize in economics awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson

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The 2024 Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to academics Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson for their work on wealth disparities between nations.

Acemoglu and Johnson are professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is a professor at the University of Chicago.

They were commended for their work on the impact of institutions and the rule of law on countries’ prosperity.

“This year’s laureates have pioneered new approaches, both empirical and theoretical, that have significantly advanced our understanding of global inequality,” said Nobel committee member Jakob Svensson.

“Reducing the huge differences in income between countries is one of our times’ greatest challenges,” he added.

He said the trio’s work had “helped us understand differences in prosperity between nations” by showing that societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit their populations can struggle to generate growth.

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