Daron Acemoğlu

Daron Acemoğlu

New institutional economics
Born	(1967-09-03) September 3, 1967 Istanbul, Turkey
Nationality	Turkish and American
Institution	Massachusetts Institute of Technology London School of Economics
Field	Economic growth, Development Economics, Political economy
Alma mater	London School of Economics University of York
Awards	John Bates Clark Medal (2005) John von Neumann Award (2007) Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics (2012)
Information at IDEAS/RePEc

Kamer Daron Acemoğlu [ˈadʒemoːɫu] is a Turkish economist born September 3, 1967 in Istanbul, Turkey now living in the USA. He is of Armenian descent. He is currently the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and winner of the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal. He is among the 10 most cited economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. His most cited article is "Colonial origins of comparative development" (2001).

Acemoğlu was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He graduated in 1986 from the Galatasaray High School in Istanbul. He got his B.Sc. degree from the University of York, UK and his M.Sc. degree in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics and then his Ph.D. degree in 1992 from the London School of Economics. He was a lecturer in economics at the LSE from 1992-1993. Acemoğlu became a member of the M.I.T. faculty in 1993. He was promoted to full professor in 2000, and was named the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics in 2004. He is a member of the Economic Growth program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He is also affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research, Center for Economic Performance, International Growth Centre, and Centre for Economic Policy Research.

His principal interests are political economy, development economics, economic growth, technology, income and wage inequality, human capital and training, and labour economics. His most recent works concentrate on the role of institutions in economic development and political economy.

Daron Acemoğlu is also the co-editor of Econometrica, Review of Economics and Statistics, and associate editor of the Journal of Economic Growth, and an editorial committee board member of the Annual Review of Economics. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Acemoglu was one of the academics who signed a letter in support of legalizing marijuana in Colorado, United States.

Awards

“	[Acemoğlu's] thesis consisted of seven substantive chapters, each of which formed a paper in its own right. Each of these chapters was itself of very high quality. Indeed, I would consider even the weakest three of them to have been more than sufficient for the award of a PhD.	”
—James Malcomson, one of his thesis examiners.

• Award for best paper published in the Economic Journal in 1996
• T. W. Schultz prize at the University of Chicago in 2004
• Sherwin Rosen award for outstanding contribution to labor economics in 2004
• John Bates Clark Medal in 2005
• Elected Fellow to American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 Academy announcement
• Academy Awards in the Social Sciences- 2006, Turkish Academy of Science (Acemoğlu received the Science Award for his theoretical and empirical contributions on "the role of institutions in the process of economic development, based on the example of long-term effects left by institutions founded by European colonial administrations".)
• John von Neumann Award in 2007, given by the Rajk László College for Advanced Studies
• Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics in 2012, "for fundamental contributions to the understanding of political institutions, technical change and economic growth.”
• Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, shortlist, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty

Selected publications

• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (joint with James A. Robinson), Crown Publishers, 2012.
• Introduction to Modern Economic Growth Princeton University Press, 2008.
• Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (joint with James A. Robinson) Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Recent Developments in Growth Theory, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004. ISBN 978-1-84376-259-1

External links

• Home page
• Who is Acemoglu
• Presentation at World Bank [1]