3 US-based academics awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for their work on wealth inequality

• US-based academics Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson won the Nobel Prize in economics.
• Their work has helped demonstrate how institutions affect wealth inequality, the prize committee said.
• The three winners will divide the $1.1 million prize money equally.

Three economists based at US universities have been awarded the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for their work on how institutions affect wealth inequality.

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson will share the $1.1 million prize money, the prize committee said.

The prize, known in its entirety as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is widely considered the most prestigious prize in the field.

“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges,” said Jakob Svensson, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences. “The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.”

The three economists have developed theoretical tools that can explain why differences in institutions persist and how institutions can change, the committee said in a press release.

Acemoglu and Johnson are professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is director of the University of Chicago’s Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts.