Three US-based academics won the 2024 Nobel economics prize on Monday
Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, Jakob Svensson and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel Assembly at the Swedish Riksbank announce the Swedish Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel 2024, which goes to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, October 14, 2024.
The award came a day after a World Bank report showed that the world’s 26 poorest countries – home to 40% of its most poverty-stricken people – are more in debt than at any time since 2006, highlighting a major reversal in the fight against poverty. Johnson told Reuters by telephone that established institutions in the United States were under stress, notably due to Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.
“I’m not someone who thinks that economists have a kind of cure for everything, or they have some silver bullet,” he said. “Ideas are important in terms of giving people levers or giving people ways to think about the problems in their society.” Another finding covered how “dangerous” it was to colonise an area: the higher mortality among the colonisers, the lower today’s current output per capita, a measure of prosperity.