Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of MIT, and James Robinson of the University of Chicago were awarded the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their research on how societal institutions shape a country’s prosperity. “I believe that the political economy of growth, how we make it happen, what sort of institutions we have to have in order to undergird growth, who benefits from growth, how you regulate growth, and technology, automation, AI, the direction of technological change—those are intimately connected,” said Acemoglu in a 2021 episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast with Michael Chui.
For more on the role of inequality in economics, check out McKinsey Publishing interviews with Nobel Prize winners Angus Deaton, Robert Solow, and Richard Thaler, and insights from McKinsey’s Anu Madgavkar, Sven Smit, Kweilin Ellingrud, Tracy Francis, and Asutosh Padhi.
Forward Thinking on technology and political economy with Daron Acemoglu
From poverty to empowerment: Raising the bar for sustainable and inclusive growth
Inequality: A persisting challenge and its implications
Author Talks: How industrial technology is creating a more inclusive economy
Prospects for growth: An interview with Robert Solow
Debiasing the corporation: An interview with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler