Daron Acemoglu

Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT, where he has taught since 1993 and was named an Institute Professor in 2019. Born in Turkey, of Armenian descent, he studied mathematical economics at the University of York before completing a master's and doctorate at the London School of Economics.

His research spans political economy, development economics and Labour economics. He is best known for work with James A. Robinson on why some nations prosper and others do not, set out in "Why Nations Fail". In 2024 he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Robinson and Simon Johnson for demonstrating how inclusive political and economic institutions drive prosperity.

On AI specifically, his NBER Working Paper No. 32487, "The Simple Macroeconomics of AI", estimates the technology's contribution to total factor productivity at no more than 0.66% cumulatively over ten years, and under 0.53% on Conservative assumptions, among the most cautious figures in the economic literature on AI's growth effect. That paper's scepticism sits alongside his willingness to add his name to public warnings about AI's pace, a tension that recurs whenever his research and his advocacy are read side by side.