Prof. Daron Acemoğlu has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the formation of institutions and their impact on prosperity. Prof. Acemoğlu shares the prize, announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with Prof. Simon Johnson and Prof. James Robinson.
Prof. Acemoğlu, who is a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bilkent University in 2015.
Born in İstanbul in 1967, Prof. Acemoğlu graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1986. He received his BA in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics from the University of York in the UK (1989) and completed his master’s (1990) and PhD (1992) degrees at the London School of Economics. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1992 to 1993. Since 1993, he has continued his academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 2000 he became a professor of economics, and in 2019 he received the title of institute professor, the highest rank awarded to a faculty member at the university.
His research focuses on political economy, economic development, economic growth, income and wage inequality, labor economics, economic theory, human capital and training and education. His works, “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy” (2006) and “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” (2012), coauthored with political scientist James A. Robinson, have received numerous awards.
As of 2021, according to the IDEAS/RePEc research database, Acemoğlu is ranked among the top 10 most cited economists in the world.
