Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson Win 2024 Nobel Economics Prize

A screen shows the laureates (L-R) Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu and British-Americans Simon Johnson and James Robinson of the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel during the announcement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on October 14, 2024. (TT news agency / AFP)

11:06-14 October 2024 AD ـ 11 Rabi’ Al-Thani 1446 AH

Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson Win 2024 Nobel Economics Prize

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson won the 2024 Nobel economics prize "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).

"Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time's greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this," said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.

The economics award is not one of the original prizes for science, literature and peace created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901, but a later addition established and funded by Sweden's central bank in 1968.

Past winners include a host of influential thinkers such as Milton Friedman, John Nash - played by actor Russell Crowe in the 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind" - and, more recently, former US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Last year, Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin won the prize for her work highlighting the causes of wage and labor market inequality between men and women.

The economics prize has been dominated by US academics since its inception, while US-based researchers also tend to account for a large portion of winners in the scientific fields for which 2024 laureates were announced last week.

That crop of prizes began with US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the prize for medicine on Monday and concluded with Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, an organization of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who campaigned for the abolition of nuclear weapons landing the award for peace on Friday.

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In Hiroshima, Nobel Prize Brings Survivors Hope, Sense of Duty

Teruko Yahata, who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, gestures, as she speaks at an interview with Reuters on the following day of The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima, Japan, October 12, 2024. (Reuters)

07:16-13 October 2024 AD ـ 10 Rabi’ Al-Thani 1446 AH

In Hiroshima, Nobel Prize Brings Survivors Hope, Sense of Duty

Almost eight decades after an atomic bomb devastated her hometown of Hiroshima, Teruko Yahata carries the scar on her forehead from when she was knocked over by the force of the blast.

The US bombs that laid waste to Hiroshima on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, and to Nagasaki three days later, changed the course of history and left Yahata and other survivors with deep scars and a sense of responsibility toward disarmament.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to the Nihon Hidankyo group of atomic bomb survivors, for its work warning of the dangers of nuclear arms, has given survivors hope and highlighted their work still ahead, Yahata and others said.

"It felt as if a light suddenly shone through. I felt like I could see the light," the 87-year-old said on Saturday, describing her reaction to hearing about the award.

"This feels like the first step, the beginning of a movement toward nuclear abolition," she told Reuters at the site of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

She was just 8 years old and in the back garden of her home when the bomb hit. Although her house was 2.5 km (1.5 miles) from the hypocenter, the blast was strong enough to throw her several meters back into her house, she said.

Seventy-nine years later, and a day after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the survivors the prize, a long line formed outside the museum, with dozens of foreign and Japanese visitors queuing up to get in.

A bridge leading into the memorial park was decorated with a yellow sheet and other handmade signs against nuclear weapons. Campaigners gathered signatures for nuclear abolition from those passing by.

Nihon Hidankyo, formed in 1956, has provided thousands of witness accounts, issued resolutions and public appeals, sent delegations to the UN and peace conferences, and collected signatures advocating nuclear disarmament.

Yahata, who is not a Nihon Hidankyo member, said it was that drive to gather signatures that finally paid off after bearing little fruit for most of a century.

"It's this amount of sadness and joy that led them to this peace prize. I think it's something very meaningful," she said.

Nihon Hidankyo's co-chair, Toshiyuki Mimaki, said he felt the award meant more responsibility, adding that most atomic bomb survivors were more than 85 years old.

"Rather than feeling purely happy, I feel like I have more responsibility now," he told Reuters, sitting in a Hidankyo office in Hiroshima in front of a map showing the impact of the bomb on the city.

In rural areas the group is on the verge of falling apart, the 82-year-old said. "The big challenge now is what to do going forward."

Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson Win 2024 Nobel Economics Prize

Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson Win 2024 Nobel Economics Prize

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In Hiroshima, Nobel Prize Brings Survivors Hope, Sense of Duty

In Hiroshima, Nobel Prize Brings Survivors Hope, Sense of Duty

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