James A. Robinson will receive the 2024 Nobel Prize for research into global inequality

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Prof. James A. Robinson of the University of Chicago was awarded the 2024 Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Robinson, Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy and the Department of Political Science, for his research on “how institutions emerge and operate.” Prosperity.” He shared this year's prize with Profs. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson from MIT.

Robinson is the 101st scientist affiliated with the university to receive a Nobel Prize and the 34th to receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. In addition to Robinson, seven current UChicago faculty members are Nobel Prize winners in economics: Prof. Douglas Diamond (who won in 2022), Prof. Michael Kremer (2019), Prof. Richard Thaler (2017), Profs. Eugene Fama and Lars Hansen (2013), Prof. Roger Myerson (2007) and Prof. James Heckman (2000).

As an economist and political scientist, Robinson has conducted influential research in the areas of political and economic development and the relationships between political power and institutions and wealth. Robinson is the department chair at UChicago Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. He has conducted fieldwork around the world, including in Bolivia, Colombia, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

Robinson, Acemoglu and Johnson are being honored for their work aimed at exploring the historical roots of an age-old question: Why are some countries poorer and others wealthier? And why do these inequalities persist? Using empirical and theoretical approaches, scientists have achieved “a much deeper understanding of the root causes of countries’ failure or success,” according to the Nobel Committee.

“Economists understand what creates wealth,” Robinson said on the Big Brains podcast in 2019, “and that's why I've never been that interested in rich countries… for me the puzzle has always been about poor countries and why poor countries.” “We cannot take advantage of everything that is written in economics textbooks.”

Specifically, Robinson, Acemoglu, and Johnson examine how economic and political institutions can cause these extreme income disparities. To do this, scientists traced much of history, beginning in the 16th century, when European colonization of much of the world led to the emergence of new institutions. The differences in the functioning of these institutions, whether extractive or integrative, have enormous implications for a nation's long-term prosperity.

“It's not about exogenous factors that condemn certain societies to poverty or make them prosper,” Robinson said. “It really comes down to how people themselves organize their societies that makes the difference.”

Robinson is widely considered a co-author of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Wealth, and Poverty (2012)together with Acemoglu. The book has been translated into 49 languages ​​since its publication and offers a unique historical examination of why some countries prospered economically while others fell into poverty. He is also the author and co-author of numerous books and articles, including the acclaimed Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy (2005) And The Narrow Corridor: States, Society and the Fate of Freedom (2019, also with Acemoglu).

Robinson received his Ph.D. He graduated from Yale University, received his master's degree from the University of Warwick, and received his bachelor's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining the UChicago faculty, he previously taught at the University of Melbourne, the University of Southern California, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University.