Daron Acemoglu Wins 2025 Sage-CASBS Award
The MIT economist and Nobel laureate’s interrogations into the causes of long-term economic growth exert influence throughout the social and behavioral sciences and inform public discourse. He will deliver a public award lecture at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences on April 24, 2025.
Sage and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University are pleased to announce Daron Acemoglu as winner of the 2025 Sage-CASBS Award.
One of three scholars awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu is the ninth winner of the Sage-CASBS Award. He is among the world’s most renowned and celebrated economists. Across his career spanning more than three decades he has conducted research broadly in and contributed to the fields of macroeconomics, political economy, labor economics, development economics, network economics, human capital theory, and growth theory. His research and writing specifically in the political economy of long-term economic growth and development as well as in the theory and empirics of technological change reverberate well beyond the boundaries of economics, exerting influence throughout the social and behavioral sciences and into the public sphere.
“Daron Acemoglu advances our understanding of some of the most elemental aspects of human endeavor – the pursuit of prosperity and economic equality – both in historical and contemporary contexts,” said Blaise Simqu, CEO of Sage. “In combining rigorous academic scholarship with public-facing thought leadership, often with policy and governance implications, he embodies the greatest aspirations Sage and CASBS have for this award. I am proud that Professor Acemoglu forever will be associated with it and our two organizations.”
Acemoglu has served on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993 and has held endowed professorships there since 2004. In 2019, he was named MIT Institute Professor, the university’s highest faculty appointment. There, he co-directs the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. Before MIT, Acemoglu held a lectureship and earned his doctoral degree at the London School of Economics. He currently holds external Research Associate appointments with the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Toulouse Network for Information Technology as well as Fellow appointments with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
In 2024, a Prospect Magazine survey identified Professor Acemoglu as the “World’s Top Thinker.” He is the author of several hundred scholarly publications and is among the world’s top three most cited living economists, with peer reviewed articles appearing in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies, among many other journals. While some individual articles have earned awards and distinctions, his cumulative body of work has garnered an impressive number of honors. A small sampling includes the John Bates Clark Medal (2005), conferred biennially by the American Economic Association to the most outstanding U.S. economist under the age of forty; the John von Neumann Award (2007), given by the Rajk László College for Advanced Studies, Hungary; the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics (2012), awarded biennially by Northwestern University; and the Global Economy Prize (2019), awarded by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), the Turkish Academy of Sciences (2013), the National Academy of Sciences (2014), and the American Philosophical Society (2021); an elected fellow of the Econometric Society (2005), the Society of Labor Economists (2007), the European Economic Association (2012), and The British Academy (2021); and was selected for a fellowship by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2017). Acemoglu is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates, including from the University of Glasgow (2024), London Business School (2018), École Normale Supérieure at the Université Paris-Saclay (2017), and Bath University (2017).
Acemoglu has served the profession in many prominent capacities, including as Vice President of the American Economic Association (2016), editor-in-chief of the journal Econometrica (2011-15), co-editor or member of the editorial boards of several other academic journals, and as a member of the executive, steering, or nominating committees of numerous disciplinary organizations and learned societies. Recently, he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (2021-23).
Google Scholar reveals that Professor Acemoglu’s most cited academic work (more than 19,000 citations) is a 2001 article – coauthored with economists Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson – published in the American Economic Review on “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” This work, related articles during the late 1990s and 2000s, as well as the 2006 scholarly book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (coauthored with Robinson) – winner of the 2007 William H. Riker Book Award by the American Political Science Association for best book in political economy published during the past three calendar years – accelerated Acemoglu along the trajectory resulting in the body of work (often with Robinson, Johnson, and other collaborators) that attracted the attention of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2024.
Of great importance to the Sage-CASBS Award, this period also led to the crafting of works aimed beyond narrow academic audiences and toward influencing broader mainstream audiences and public discourses surrounding the comparative study of prosperity among nation-states (and extinct empires). Notably, many consider Acemoglu and Robinson’s 2012 trade book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty as central to the awarding of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, known formally as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The book explores why, over the course of history, different societies have been wealthy or poor, pointing to the importance of economic and political institutions – formal and informal rules and norms structuring human behavior and interactions – for economic growth and development. Through detailed analyses and case studies, it demonstrates that countries with “inclusive” institutions and respect for the rule of law tend to prosper across a broad cross-section of society. In contrast, countries with “extractive” or exploitative institutions promote disproportionate economic and political inequality, discourage innovation, stifle growth, and tend to suffer in aggregate poverty or underdevelopment while enriching a small elite.
In addition, in the book (and related work) Acemoglu and collaborators articulate the colonial roots of institutions, disentangling causes and consequences. They identify specific mechanisms and conditions driving democratization (or its reverse) as well as theorize how and when democratic (or more-democratic) regimes are more likely to emerge and afford their populations economic opportunities that enable growth that persists over time. And though history shows the effects of institutional choices are long-lasting, they are not irreversible. The clear governance implication is that greater economic equality among nation-states can be achieved through institutional reforms within nation-states.
An acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Why Nations Fail, among other honors, won the 2013 George S. Eccles Prize for Excellence in Economic Writing, awarded annually by Columbia University to the author(s) of the best book on economics that bridges theory and practice.
“In the process of applying his expertise across time spans, Daron Acemoglu also performs social science inquiry across multiple disciplinary boundaries and in a collaborative way, a hallmark of the ethos underlying all that we do here,” said Sarah Soule, the Sara Miller McCune Director of CASBS. “It is fitting that Daron’s outstanding work takes some of its inspiration from eminent institutional economists, political scientists, and historians such as Douglass North, Barry Weingast, and many others who have spent a year as CASBS fellows. It is an honor to celebrate Daron in connection with this enduring spirit through the Sage-CASBS Award.”
Following Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu coauthored two more trade books that leverage his three decades of research and thinking and continue to explore the interactions among political forces, institutions, and economic growth: The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (2019, with James A. Robinson) and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity (2023, with Simon Johnson). The former argues that the balance between strong, accountable states and vibrant, autonomous societies is crucial for sustaining liberty, and explores how this delicate relationship shapes political systems across the world. The latter questions the commonly-held view that technological change inexorably brings wide-spread benefits to society as a whole and to workers, and outlines an alternative vision of how the fruits of contemporary technological innovations, including artificial intelligence, can be harnessed for the social good rather than narrow elites.
In its October 14, 2024 prize announcement, the Nobel Foundation cited Daron Acemoglu and fellow laureates Johnson and Robinson “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity” as well as for developing “theoretical tools that can explain why differences in institutions persist and how institutions can change.” On that day, Acemoglu became the second ethnic Armenian and third Turkish national (he is also a naturalized U.S. citizen) to win a Nobel Prize.
Separate from his high-profile collaborations, Acemoglu has engaged public discourses and debates in other arenas, distinguishing himself through singular thought leadership contained in essays, opinion pieces, and articles appearing in public-facing non-academic publications and platforms. Since 2012, he has authored more than 80 pieces in Project Syndicate, a popular forum for public affairs commentary. Just in the past year, he has published guest essays in VoxEU, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Wired, and appeared on dozens of podcasts and other accessible online media. The subject matter runs the gamut in political-economic affairs and policy, both in the U.S. and globally. Many of the concerns intersect with aspects of two of his current, early-stage projects, one on reconceptualizing democracy for the 21st century, the other on what it means to be human in an era of AI, especially given its consequences for labor, socioeconomic inequalities, and democracy itself.
The throughline for much of the work remains the same: the imperative of inclusive institutions for shared prosperity. In his Nobel speech delivered December 10, 2024, in Stockholm, Acemoglu reflected on the continued relevance of the studies and findings that propelled his journey:
Today, 25 years later, the same institutions are in danger. Democracy is threatened almost everywhere, and support for democratic institutions is at a modern low. And now the world must confront the problems brought by a warming climate, new global power relations, and rapidly aging populations. And perhaps most importantly, AI now promises to disrupt everything, everywhere, all at once.
History again has lessons for us. Shared prosperity has only occurred during some periods of human history, and it has never been an automatic process. Inclusivity is key. If, in the name of progress, the politically powerful trample on people’s rights and voices, if the privileged start to see the rest of society as dispensable, and if the elite mistakenly convince themselves that only their ideas and talent matter, this will shatter the institutions that underpin shared prosperity.
Institutions are always about choices. What worries us also gives us hope. We can build better institutions and choose a direction for technology that creates more good jobs. But this has to be a collective effort…
CASBS and SAGE disseminated a public call for award nominations in June 2024. Acemoglu was selected as the winner among the nominees after a rigorous selection process. The Sage-CASBS Award selection committee consisted of Blaise Simqu, CEO of Sage; Sarah Soule, Sara Miller McCune Director of CASBS, Stanford University; Margaret O’Mara, Professor and Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Chair of American History, University of Washington, and 2014-15 CASBS fellow; and Aaron Shaw, Associate Professor of Communication, Northwestern University, and 2017-18 CASBS fellow.
Sage is the proud funder of the award. In addition to a cash prize, Daron Acemoglu will deliver a public award lecture at CASBS on Thursday, April 24, 2025. The event will be free and open to the public. CASBS will release event details in March.
About the award and past winners
Established in 2013, the Sage-CASBS Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the behavioral and social sciences that advances our understanding of pressing social issues. The award underscores the role of the social and behavioral sciences in enriching and enhancing public discourse and good governance. Past winners of the award include Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics; Pedro Noguera, Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Southern California; Kenneth Prewitt, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau and the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Emeritus at Columbia University; William Julius Wilson, the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Emeritus at Harvard University; Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University; Jennifer Richeson, the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology at Yale University; Elizabeth Anderson, the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of Michigan; and Alondra Nelson, former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Harold F. Linder Chair and Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study.
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