Stockholm:
The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded on Monday to the Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu and the British-Americans Simon Johnson and James Robinson for research into wealth inequality between countries.
By examining the different political and economic systems introduced by European colonists, the three have succeeded in demonstrating a link between institutions and prosperity, according to the jury.
“Reducing the enormous income gaps between countries is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Committee for the Prize for Economic Sciences, said in a statement.
“The laureates have demonstrated the importance of social institutions in achieving this,” Svensson added.
Acemoglu, 57, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as is Johnson, 61.
Robinson, 64, is a professor at the University of Chicago.
The jury highlighted the laureates' work, which illuminates how social institutions play a role in explaining why some countries prosper while others fail.
“I'm very happy. It's just a real shock and great news,” Acemoglu told reporters by phone as the award was announced in Stockholm.
The Economics Prize is the only Nobel Prize that is not one of the original five established in the will of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
Instead, it was created by a donation from Sweden's central bank in 1968, leading opponents to call it “a bogus Nobel Prize.”
But as with the other Nobel Prizes in Science, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences determines the winner and follows the same selection process.
The Economics Prize concludes this year's Nobel season, in which achievements in artificial intelligence were honored for the prizes in physics and chemistry, while the Peace Prize went to the Japanese group Nihon Hidankyo, which is committed to the fight against nuclear weapons.
South Korea's Han Kan won the literature prize – the only female laureate so far this year – while the medicine prize praised discoveries in understanding gene regulation.
The Nobel Prizes consist of a diploma, a gold medal and a cash prize of one million dollars.
They will be presented at ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of scientist and prize creator Alfred Nobel in 1896.
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