Trio of professors win Nobel Prize in economics for work on postcolonial prosperity | Nobel Prize in Economics

Three U.S.-based professors, including two British-born academics, were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics this year for showing how the political and economic systems introduced by colonial rulers can determine whether a country is rich or poor today .

The statement by Turkish-American Daron Acemoğlu, Sheffield-born Simon Johnson and Briton James A. Robinson suggests that inclusive institutions established for the long-term benefit of European migrants led to wealthier societies in the long run.

However, they found that in countries where the goal was to exploit indigenous populations and extract resources for the benefit of colonizers, the effects were detrimental and resulted in far poorer societies, trapping some countries in cycles of low economic growth .

“The award winners have shown that this has led to a change in fortunes. “The places that were relatively richest at the time of colonization are now among the poorest,” the Nobel Prize announcement said.

“This is a big reason why former colonies that were once rich are now poor and vice versa,” she added.

However, the researchers said the effect could be reversed if a country could “free itself from its inherited institutions to establish democracy and the rule of law.” In the long term, these changes will also lead to a reduction in poverty.”

The trio of scientists will share the prize, which comes with a cash prize of 11 million crowns (£810,000) and a gold medal. Established in the 1960s, several decades after the original Nobel Prizes, it is technically known as the Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

“Reducing the huge income gaps between countries is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” said Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Economics Prize Committee. “The award winners have shown how important social institutions are for this.”

Acemoğlu, 57, and Johnson, 61, are both professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. They co-authored a book last year called “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.”

Johnson is also known for a brief stint at the International Monetary Fund from March 2007 to August 2008.

Robinson, 64, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a book with Acemoğlu – Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty – which was first published in 2012.