The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics to three scientists, including the authors of the world-renowned book “Why Nations Fail”—Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson, and Simon Johnson for having “demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity.”
- Acemoglu, who is of Turkish origin, is a Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
- Johnson is also a professor at MIT, from where he got his PhD in 1989.
- Robinson is a Professor at the University of Chicago with a PhD from Yale University.
The three scientists are highly accomplished economists and political scientists. Acemoglu and Johnson are the authors of the bestseller book “Why Nations Fail”, which studies wealth inequality in nations. The work of the three scientists is especially relevant to Kenya and the rest of Africa, where the effects of European colonialism on social institutions, economic progress, and political stability are still stark.
Unlike other Nobel Prizes, the prize for Economics was not in the original will by Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will and was instead created from an endowment by Sweden’s central bank in 1968. Since then, it has been won 56 times by 96 laureates, most of them American.
“The laureates have shown that one explanation for differences in countries’ prosperity is the societal institutions that were introduced during colonisation. Inclusive institutions were often introduced in countries that were poor when they were colonised, over time resulting in a generally prosperous population,” the RSAS said in a statement, “This is an important reason for why former colonies that were once rich are now poor, and vice versa.”
“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,” says Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.
The prize comes with an 11 million Swedish kronor (USD: 1.055mn/Kshs. 136mn* at current exchange rates), to be shared equally among the laureates.
