'Nobel economics prize' awarded to trio for work on links between institutions and prosperity

The Nobel memorial prize in economics has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for research into differences in prosperity between nations.

The three economists "have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity," the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

"Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better. The laureates’ research helps us understand why," it added.

The announcement was made Monday in Stockholm.

Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.

The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.

Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.