Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Daron Acemoglu was born and raised in an Armenian family in Istanbul. He went on to study economics in England, receiving his PhD from the London School of Economics at the unusually young age of 25. He became an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993 and was granted the distinguished title of Institute Professor in 2019. He is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and has rejected offers for high-level economic policy jobs in the Turkish government. He also frequently comments on economic issues in the American, Turkish, and Armenian media; his policy analysis is notable for integrating both conservative and socialist economic principles. In general, his research focuses on poverty alleviation and technological change. His most influential work is the collaborative research he has conducted with James A. Robinson, an expert on institutions, democracy, and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Robinson earned his PhD in Economics at Yale University in 1993. He went on to teach in Harvard University’s Department of Government in 2004. In 2015, he moved to the University of Chicago, where he directs the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. He has done field research in multiple countries, including Haiti, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chile, and South Africa. He also contributed to the World Bank’s 2017 World Development Report on Governance, advised the Swedish government on development policy between 2007 and 2010, and teaches summer courses every year at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.