History and Institutions Did Not Need a Nobel Prize to be ‘Cool’ Again. Heterodox Economists Had Already Accomplished That

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for their work showing how political and economic institutions affect long-term prosperity. Although their research is praiseworthy for its focus on institutions and history, its reliance on New Institutional Economics (NIE) emphasizes formal institutions but not informal ones like community solidarity that heterodox economists argue are critical for understanding and directing progressive change. For this reason, their emphasis on precarity, social costs, and inequality provides a richer explanation of the growth process.