About

Daron Acemoglu won the 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics for his groundbreaking work on AI, innovation, and prosperity. If we can tap into AI’s massive potential right now, we can build a world where everyone benefits from the progress that innovation brings us. One of the most renowned economists on the planet, Daron is a historian who looks at what has happened and tells you what will happen next, with deep expertise in the impacts of technology on democracy, culture, and civilization.

Research and Work

Daron has been widely recognized for his groundbreaking work on the key role strong institutions play in a country’s democracy and wellbeing. His academic work covers a wide range of areas, including political economy, economic development, economic growth, inequality, labor economics, and economics of networks. In talks, he gives us the big-picture vision we need to change the way we innovate in order to use our creativity for the good of humanity. He has written for mainstream magazines such as Esquire and Foreign Policy, is a regular speaker for banks, think tanks, corporations, and other major institutions across the globe, and has received high-profile attention in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Economist, and many more.

Books

In his most recent book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity, Daron argues that liberal democracy has turned its back on its core promises—and proposes a new way forward towards a future of shared prosperity and empowered communities. In Power and Progress (co-authored with fellow Nobel Prize winner Simon Johnson), he shows how technology has historically benefited a select few, and how we can regain control and turn today’s advances into empowering and democratizing tools. The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (co-authored with fellow Nobel Prize winner James Robinson) is a vital assessment of how liberty flourishes in select states yet devolves into authoritarianism or anarchy in others. And in Why Nations Fail (also co-authored with James Robinson), Daron answers a question that has confounded leading minds for centuries: why are some nations rich while others are poor—and how can we help every country thrive? He is also the editor of Redesigning AI, a look at how new technologies can be put to use in the creation of a more just society.

Selected Credentials

Daron is an MIT Institute Professor—the highest title awarded to faculty members—and a founding co-director of MIT’s Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the Society of Labor Economists. He has received the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, the Nemmers Prize in Economics, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the 2019 Kiel Institute Global Economy Prize, and an Andrew Carnegie fellowship. He was twice named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers.