Nobel economics prize for 2024 awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson

U.S.-based economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson were awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences on Monday for their work on wealth inequality between nations.

The academics have helped show why societies with "poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better," the Nobel committee said, demonstrating the "importance of societal institutions for a country's prosperity."

Acemoglu and Johnson are professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is director of the University of Chicago's Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts with a specialism in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Acemoglu and Robinson wrote the popular 2012 book "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty," which explores the roots of inequality and why some countries successfully gain wealth and influence.

The richest 20% of countries are now around 30 times wealthier than the poorest 20%, the Nobel committee noted in its statement, with the former expanding its wealth while the latter segment of nations fails to close the gap.

The laureates have helped explain how the political and economic systems introduced by colonizing countries from the 16th century onward play a key part in this disparity — and that places that were the richest at the time of colonization in relative terms are now among the poorest, the committee said.

They have "pioneered new approaches, both empirical and theoretical, that have significantly enhanced our understanding of global inequality," Jakob Svensson, director, and professor of economics at Stockholm University's Institute for International Economic Studies,