The power of institutions: Economics Nobel rewards deepest questions

The basic structure of liberal economic reform that has been argued for in this country for decades now is one, essentially, of institutional change

The economics Nobel for this year went to three academics who specialise in asking a very simple question: What makes countries rich? They are not all academic economists in the traditional sense. Daron Acemoglu is certainly one of the most respected such professors of his generation. But Simon Johnson is a professor of entrepreneurship at a business school and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. And James A Robinson has long been at political science and public policy departments. A question as deep as the success and failure of nations presumably required three quite