October 14, 2024

Prof. James A. Robinson of the University of Chicago has been awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Robinson, the Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and University Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy and the Department of Political Science, for his groundbreaking research on “how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” He shared this year’s prize with Profs. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of MIT.

“James Robinson’s scholarship lays bare how much inclusive institutions matter to prosperity in a society,” said UChicago President Paul Alivisatos. “His work is in a deep tradition of University of Chicago scholarship that helps us to see the world anew and to shape it to the betterment of humankind.”

Robinson is the 101st scholar associated with the University to receive a Nobel Prize, and the 34th to receive the Nobel in economics. In addition to Robinson, seven current UChicago faculty members are Nobel laureates 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).

Robinson was sleeping, with his phone off, when the Nobel committee attempted to reach him in the early hours of Oct. 14. His wife Maria Angélica Bautista, a senior research associate at UChicago's Harris School of Public Policy, received a text from a friend and quickly woke him up.

“It’s a little bit emotional. I’m super happy obviously, but very proud and honored,” Robinson said. “It hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

An economist and political scientist, Robinson has conducted influential research on the relationships between political power, institutions and prosperity. Robinson is the institute director of UChicago’s Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. He has conducted fieldwork around the world including Bolivia, Colombia, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. 

Robinson, Acemoglu and Johnson are honored for work that aims to trace the historical roots of an age-old question: Why are some countries poorer and others prosperous? And why do these inequalities persist? Using both empirical and theoretical approaches the scholars have achieved, according to the Nobel committee, “a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”

“Economists understand what generates prosperity,” Robinson said in 2019 on the Big Brains podcast, “and so to me I’ve never been interested so much in rich countries ... to me, the puzzle has always been about poor countries and about why poor countries can’t take advantage of all this stuff which is in economics textbooks.”

Specifically, Robinson, Acemoglu and Johnson study how economic and political institutions can cause these extreme income gaps. To do this, the scholars traced wide swaths of history, starting in the 16th century when European colonization of a large part of the world caused new institutions to spring up. The differences between how these institutions operate, whether they are extractive or inclusive, have huge implications for the long-term prosperity of a nation.

“It’s not about exogenous factors that condemn certain societies to poverty or bless them with prosperity,” Robinson said. “It’s really about how humans themselves organize their societies that makes the difference.”

Robinson is widely recognized as the co-author of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), along with Acemoglu. Translated into 49 languages since its publication, the book offers a unique historic exploration of why some countries have flourished economically while others have fallen into poverty. He has also written and co-authored numerous books and articles, including the acclaimed Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2005) and The Narrow Corridor: States, Society and the Fate of Liberty (2019, also with Acemoglu).

Though Robinson admits it’s probably naive to think nothing will change after receiving the Nobel, he looks forward to continuing his ongoing research, including two book projects and future collaborations with his fellow laureates. 

“We’ve been working together for 30 years more or less. We’re still good friends, still talking about ideas nonstop. I don’t think that’s going to change,” Robinson said. “It’s a great recognition and I just hope we can carry on doing the same thing. It’s what we’re good at; it’s what we like.”

Robinson received his Ph.D. from Yale University, his master’s degree from the University of Warwick and his bachelor’s 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.