Statement by CEA Chair Jared Bernstein

The Council of Economic Advisers warmly congratulates the three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson.

As the committee noted, their work has “demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity. Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better.” Through their many papers and books including Why Nations Fail and Power and Progress, these economists have gone well beyond standard analysis of supply and demand, elevating the role of institutions, power, inclusivity, and exploitation in understanding cross-country differences in economic outcomes.

Such an expansion of the scope of what’s fair game for economic analysis has had real world implications for our Administration’s policy agenda. The work of these newly-minted Nobelists has significantly informed CEA’s analysis, in areas such as inequality, worker bargaining power, race, gender, climate, and pathways to opportunity.

We are thrilled to see such important, pathbreaking, historically-grounded, and timely work get the credit and acknowledgement it deserves.