2024诺贝尔经济学奖——国家间收入差距的起源The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics: The Origins of Income Gaps between Nations

This year's Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson for their outstanding contributions to research on how institutions are formed and how they affect prosperity. The laureates' findings differ from the view Kenneth Pomeranz put forward in The Great Divergence, which we discussed in an earlier session, and over the past twenty years they have sparked fierce debate among historians, political scientists and economists around the world. This week's session will briefly introduce their research and discuss how we should understand and regard the findings of economics. Questions to spark interest: - Why is there a Nobel Prize in economics at all? - What practical uses does Nobel-winning economics have in real life? - Why did some former European colonies become modern economic powers, while others remain in turmoil to this day? Questions we will explore: - How did colonial institutions shape the economic development of modern nations? - Why did the world's advanced ancient civilisations undergo a "reversal of fortune" in the modern era? - What role do property rights play in economic development?