Daron Acemoglu facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Daron Acemoglu
|
|
|---|---|
Acemoglu in 2016
|
|
| Born |
Kamer Daron Acemoğlu
September 3, 1967 Istanbul, Turkey
|
| Citizenship | Turkey and United States |
| Spouse(s) | Asu Ozdaglar |
| Institution |
|
| Field | Political economy Economic growth Development economics Labour economics |
| School or tradition |
New institutional economics |
| Doctoral advisor |
Kevin W. S. Roberts |
| Doctoral students |
Robert Shimer • Mark Aguiar • Pol Antràs • Gabriel Carroll • Melissa Dell • Benjamin Jones • Ufuk Akcigit |
| Influences | Joel Mokyr • Kenneth Sokoloff • Douglass North • Seymour Martin Lipset • Barrington Moore |
| Awards |
|
| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
Kamer Daron Acemoğlu ( born September 3, 1967) is a Turkish American economist who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993, where he is currently the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, and was named an Institute Professor at MIT in 2019. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, and the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024.
Born to Armenian parents in Istanbul, Acemoglu received a BA from the University of York in 1989, and a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1992. He lectured at LSE for a year before joining the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005. Acemoglu is best known for his work on political economy. He has authored hundreds of papers, many of them with his long-time collaborators Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. With Robinson, he co-authored the books Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006) and Why Nations Fail (2012). The latter, an influential book on the role that institutions play in shaping nations' economic outcomes, received wide scholarly and media attention. Described as a centrist, he believes in a regulated market economy. He regularly comments on political issues, economic inequality, and a variety of specific policies.
Acemoglu ranked third, behind Paul Krugman and Greg Mankiw, in the list of "Favorite Living Economists Under Age 60" in a 2011 survey among American economists. In 2015, he was named the most cited economist of the past 10 years per Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) data. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Acemoglu is the third most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses after Mankiw and Krugman.
In 2024, Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, and Simon Johnson were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their comparative studies in prosperity between nations. The trio was recognized for their studies on how political and economic institutions impact a nation's development, highlighting the distinction between inclusive institutions, which promote widespread economic participation and growth, and extractive institutions, which concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few. Their work, notably encapsulated in the book Why Nations Fail, argues that the institutional frameworks established during colonization continue to play a pivotal role in the long-term economic trajectories of countries, explaining significant disparities in global prosperity.
Contents
Life
Kamer Daron Acemoğlu was born in Istanbul to Armenian parents on September 3, 1967. His father, Kevork Acemoglu (1938−1988), was a commercial lawyer and lecturer at Istanbul University. His mother, Irma Acemoglu (d. 1991), was the principal of Aramyan Uncuyan, an Armenian elementary school in Kadıköy, which Daron attended, before graduating from Galatasaray High School in 1986. He became interested in politics and economics as a teenager. He was educated at the University of York, where he received a BA in economics in 1989, and at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he received an MSc in econometrics and mathematical economics in 1990, and a PhD in economics in 1992. His doctoral thesis was titled Essays in Microfoundations of Macroeconomics: Contracts and Economic Performance. His doctoral advisor was Kevin W. S. Roberts. James Malcomson, one of his doctoral examiners at the LSE, said that even the weakest three of the seven chapters of his thesis were "more than sufficient for the award of a PhD." Arnold Kling called him a wunderkind due to the age at which he received his PhD (25).
Acemoglu is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He is fluent in English and Turkish, and speaks some Armenian. He is married to Asuman "Asu" Ozdağlar, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, who is the daughter of İsmail Özdağlar, a former Turkish government minister. Together, they have authored several articles. As of 2015, they live in Newton, Massachusetts with their two sons, Arda and Aras.
Academic career
Acemoglu was a lecturer in economics at the LSE from 1992 to 1993. He was appointed an assistant professor at MIT in 1993, where he became the Pentti Kouri Associate Professor of Economics in 1997, and was tenured in 1998. He became a full professor at MIT in 2000, and served as the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics there from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, Acemoglu was appointed the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. In July 2019, he was named an Institute Professor, the highest faculty honour at MIT.
As of 2019, he has mentored over 60 PhD students. Among his doctoral students are Robert Shimer, Mark Aguiar, Pol Antràs, and Gabriel Carroll. In 2014, he made $841,380, making him one of the top earners at MIT.
Acemoglu is a research associate at the NBER, and was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2005. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and a member of several other learned societies. He edited Econometrica, an academic journal published by the Econometric Society, from 2011 to 2015.
Acemoglu has authored hundreds of academic papers. He noted that most of his research has been "motivated by trying to understand the sources of poverty." His research includes a wide range of topics, including political economy, human capital theory, growth theory, economic development, innovation, labor economics, income and wage inequality, and network economics, among others. He noted in 2011 that most his research of the past 15 years concerned with what can be broadly called political economy. He has made contribution to the labor economics field.
Acemoglu has extensively collaborated with James A. Robinson, a British political scientist, since 1993. Acemoglu has described it as a "very productive relationship." They have worked together on a number of articles and several books, most of which on the subject of growth and economic development. The two have also extensively collaborated with economist Simon Johnson.
Awards
- Economics awards
- John Bates Clark Medal (2005) by the American Economic Association
- John von Neumann Award (2007) by Rajk László College for Advanced Studies
- Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics (2012) by Northwestern University "for fundamental contributions to the understanding of political institutions, technical change and economic growth"
- BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2016) "for proving the influence of institutions over economic development"
- Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize, Toulouse School of Economics (2018)
- Global Economy Prize, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (2019)
- Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (2021)
- State orders and awards
- Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award in Social Sciences (2013) by Turkish President Abdullah Gül
- Honorary degrees
Acemoglu has been awarded honorary degrees from the following universities: Utrecht University (2008), Boğaziçi University (2011), the University of Athens (2014), Bilkent University (2015), University of Bath (2017), ENS Paris-Saclay (2017), London Business School (2018), and the University of Glasgow (2024).
- Other
- Carnegie Fellow (2017)
See also
In Spanish: Daron Acemoğlu para niños
