Faculty
Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also affiliated with the National Bureau Economic Research, and the Center for Economic Policy Research.
In 2024, Acemoglu received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, joint with Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”
He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Philosophical Society, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists.
Daron Acemoglu received a BA in economics from the University of York, 1989, an MSc in mathematical economics and econometrics from the London School of Economics, 1990, and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics in 1992. Since 1993, he has held the academic positions of Lecturer at the London School of Economics, and Assistant Professor, Pentti Kouri Associate Professor, and Professor of Economics at MIT.
He is the author of six books: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (with James A. Robinson), Introduction to Modern Economic Growth, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (with James A. Robinson), Principles of Economics (with David Laibson and John List), The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (with James A. Robinson), and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (with Simon Johnson).
His academic work has been published in leading scholarly journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal Economics and Review of Economic Studies. His research covers a wide range of areas within economics, including political economy, economic development and growth, human capital theory, growth theory, innovation, search theory, network economics and learning.
Daron Acemoglu has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the inaugural T. W. Shultz Prize from the University of Chicago in 2004, and the inaugural Sherwin Rosen Award for outstanding contribution to labor economics in 2004; Distinguished Science Award from the Turkish Sciences Association in 2006; the John von Neumann Award, Rajk College, Budapest in 2007; the Carnegie Fellowship in 2017; the Jean-Jacques Laffont prize in 2018; the Global Economy Prize in 2019; and the CME Mathematical and Statistical Research Institute prize in 2021.
He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, given every two years to the best economist in the United States under the age of 40 by the American Economic Association; the Erwin Plein Nemmers prize awarded every two years for work of lasting significance in economics in 2013; and the 2016 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge award in economics.
He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Utrecht, the Bosporus University, University of Athens, Bilkent University, the University of Bath, the Ecole Normale Superieure, Scaly Paris, and the London Business School.
His book (joint with James A. Robinson) Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy received the Association of American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence, and the William Riker Prize for Best Book Published in Political Economy, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for Best Book Published on Government, Politics or International Affairs. Why Nations Fail also received several prizes and awards, and was a New York Times bestseller in 2012.
His new book, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (joint with Simon Johnson) was published in May 2023.
Acemoglu, Daron. Economic Policy Vol. 40, No. 121 (2025).
Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson, Working Paper. May 2024. NBER Working Paper No. 32416.
Capraro, Valerio, Austin Lentsch, and Daron Acemoglu et al., Working Paper. December 2023.
Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson. New York, NY: PublicAffairs/Hachette Book Group, 2023.
Acemoglu, Daron. MIT Press, 2021.
Daron Acemoglu, Andrea Manera, and Pascual Restrepo. In MIT Work of the Future, Research Brief, Cambridge, MA: September 2020.
Artificial intelligence can make workers more capable and productive, but only if leaders design and deploy it to augment human judgment.
As AI capabilities advance, the window for shaping whether the technology augments or replaces workers is narrowing. Decision makers need to step up, MIT researchers say.
"A proposed pledge for Elon Musk," wrote Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu in an X post on Monday. "If money won't matter in 2036, why don't you pledge to donate your current wealth of approximately $1 trillion to charity no later than 2036. This would establish with great credibility your belief in the powers of AI and technology."
Artificial intelligence could transform the economy faster than any previous technology, and policymakers must move equally quickly to figure out how to respond, a group of economists and researchers are warning. The statement, titled "We Must Act Now,"was signed by nearly 200 people, including 15 Nobel laureates. MIT Sloan signatories are Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu, professor Sinan Aral, assistant professor Michiel Bakker, research scientist Christian Catalini, Professor Emeritus Bengt Holmström, professor Simon Johnson, professor Thomas W. Malone, professor Scott Stern, and principal research scientist Neil Thompson.
Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu wrote: "We urgently need to build an ethical consensus on AI, not least because doing so could help us deal with the various symbiotic challenges that genetic engineering brings. Failing that, we will have traded future generations' inheritance for a mess of pottage."
Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu said: "AI is more likely to replace than augment jobs in the near term. But the scale of job losses won't be anywhere close to the very large layoffs some are predicting." Principal research scientist Neil Thompson said AI's technical capability alone does not guarantee widespread job losses. "The impact AI ultimately has on the labour market may not be nearly as large as its impressive capabilities suggest," Thompson said.
