With only three dozen total members, the department punches far above its weight, making vital contributions in a range of research areas that include labor markets, global development, and contract law. Three former economics faculty who won the award while serving at MIT bring the total medal count to an astonishing nine.
Distinguished winners include:
Peter Diamond PhD ’63 (2010)
There’s the way the job market functions in theory, and then there is the reality. Institute Professor Emeritus Peter Diamond helped develop models to explain how “search frictions” affect how unemployment, job vacancies, and wages function in the real world, and how labor policy can help individuals and employers get their needs met.
Bengt Holmström (2016)
Contracts are essential in so many aspects of society, defining terms of cooperation and minimizing uncertainty. Professor Emeritus Bengt Holmström developed crucial theories analyzing how contracts work, as well as how they might be optimized for all parties. His work has impacted the way people design and govern companies and other institutions.
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo PhD ’99 (2019)
Pioneers in the field of developmental economics, Duflo and Banerjee have conducted innovative field experiments to shed new light on a variety of global development issues—including poverty, health care, education, and agriculture. Now the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics and the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, respectively, they’ve put theory into practice by cofounding the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, alongside Professor Sendhil Mullainathan, in 2003, and developing programs over the years to alleviate poverty and disease around the world.
Joshua Angrist (2021)
Natural experiments, in which groups of people are studied in real-world situations rather than laboratory testing, are a crucial tool in economics. Ford Professor of Economics Joshua Angrist helped develop a new methodology for such experiments that better illustrate how people’s participation in programs around employment and education cause different outcomes in their lives and allow economists to draw conclusions about the effects of government policy in complex situations.
Daron Acemoglu (2024)
The most recent economics faculty member to join the Nobel Prize ranks, Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu researches global economics history. Winning the prize along with Simon Johnson PhD ’89, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Acemoglu has examined the history of colonization to demonstrate how the strength of societal institutions can affect a country’s prosperity, demonstrating the importance of democracy and inclusivity to worldwide economic growth.
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