Trio of professors win Nobel economics prize for work on post-colonial wealth
Three US-based professors, including two UK-born academics, have been awarded this year?s Nobel prize in economics, for showing how the types of institutions introduced by colonisers have helped determine whether a country is rich or poor today.
The explanation put forward by Turkish-American Daron Acemo?lu, Sheffield-born Simon Johnson and Briton James A Robinson, suggests that inclusive institutions for the long-term benefit of European migrants ended up resulting in more prosperous societies in the long term.
However, they found that in countries where the aim was to exploit the Indigenous population and extract resources for the colonisers? benefit, the impact has been detrimental, and resulted in far poorer societies, leaving some countries trapped in low economic growth cycles.
?This is an important reason for why former colonies that were once rich are now poor, and vice versa,? the Nobel prize announcement said.
The trio of academics will share the award, which comes with an 11m kroner (?810,000) cash prize and a gold medal. Established in the 1960s, several decades after the original Nobel prizes, it is technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.
?Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time?s greatest challenges,? Jakob Svensson, chair of the committee for the prize in economic sciences, said. ?The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.?
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