Daron Acemoglu: the 4th Nobel laureate of Armenian descent

On October 14, it became known that Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics “for research into the processes of institution formation and their impact on economic prosperity.”

In connection with this event, the famous Turkish investigative journalist Ismail Saymaz wrote on his X page that Daron Acemoglu is the third Turk who won the Nobel Prize.

“The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to the world-renowned economist Daron Acemoglu. He became the third Turk to win the Nobel Prize, after writer Orhan Pamuk and scientist Aziz Sancar,” he writes.

It should be noted, however, that Daron Acemoglu was born in an Armenian family, Orhan Pamuk has Circassian roots on his maternal side, and Aziz Sancar was born in an Arab family

In response to the Turkish journalist’s post, Mehmet Efe Caman, a famous Turkish professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, wrote on his X page:

“Only yesterday, the Armenian identity was used as an insult. More than one million indigenous Armenians of Anatolia were killed during the 1915 genocide. Countless Armenians have renounced their identity in order to survive. Millions of Christians, Greeks, Syrians, and Anatolian indigenous people were assimilated under Turkish supremacy. The official history denies this all. Now that Daron Acemoglu has won the Nobel Prize, they are trying to attribute this victory to Turkish identity under the guise of citizenship. This is, to put it mildly, insolence.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek congratulated Acemoglu on receiving the Nobel Prize. The President of Türkiye calls Acemoglu a “Turkish-American economist” without mentioning the fact that he is of Armenian origin. Meanwhile, Şimşek writes on his X page: “Heartfelt congratulations to distinguished economist Daron Acemoglu for winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the formation of institutions and their impact on prosperity.” Occasional Turkish sources pointed out his Armenian origin (1, 2).

Who is Daron Acemoglu?

Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, British Academy, American Philosophical Society, Turkish Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Daron Acemoglu was born on September 3, 1967 in Istanbul, Türkiye, in an Armenian family. His father, Kevork Acemoglu, was a prominent commercial lawyer, and his mother, Irma, was the principal of an Armenian school.

Acemoglu received his early education at Aramyan Uncuyan Armenian Primary in Istanbul. He later attended Galatasaray High School.

After graduating in 1986, he moved to the United Kingdom for further education.

Acemoglu earned a BA in Mathematical Economics from the University of York in the United Kingdom.

He then continued his studies at the London School of Economics, where he received both his Master’s Degree in 1990 and PhD in 1992.

In 1993, Acemoglu joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he quickly rose through the ranks. In 2000, he became a full professor, and in 2019 he was honored with the title of “Institute Professor,” the highest title awarded to faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Throughout his career, Acemoglu’s research has spanned multiple fields, including political economy, economic growth, income inequality and labor economics..

Acemoglu is a citizen of the USA and Türkiye. He is fluent in English and Turkish and speaks a little Armenian.

Acemoglu is known for his collaboration with political scientist James Robinson.

They co-authored the book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006), where they argue that “democracy is strengthened when elites have no strong incentives to overthrow it. Those processes depend on the power of civil society, the structure of political institutions, the nature of political and economic crises, the level of economic inequality, and the structure of the economy.”

The collaboration on Why Nations Fail (2012), brought them global attention.

On May 13, 2018, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Facebook that Daron Acemoglu expressed his willingness to support Armenia in a telephone conversation with him and accepted his invitation to visit Armenia.

“I just had a telephone conversation with the world-renowned economist Daron Acemoglu of Armenian origin. He said that he is ready to support Armenia in restoring and developing the economy. Mr. Acemoglu accepted my invitation to visit Armenia. The dates of the visit will be specified in the near future,” Pashinyan wrote.

However, Acemoglu never came to Armenia. 6 years later, on September 11, 2024, in an interview with the Yerevan Tribune, the world-famous economist, answering the question why he did not come to Armenia after Nikol Pashinyan’s invitation, he noted: “I didn’t come to Armenia because I never thought that I could get the economy back on its feet. I never thought that I could do it, I am an outsider, I don’t understand the Armenian economy in detail. The outside expert should not be overestimated.“

It should be noted that Acemoglu is not the only Nobel laureate of Armenian descent or Armenian roots. In 2021, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the molecular biologist, neuroscientist Ardem Patapoutyan. The latter was born in Beirut and moved to the United States with his family during the Lebanese civil war. He currently directs the Scripps Scientific Institution’s Patapoutyan Laboratory.

On October 12, 2007, American-Armenian climate scientist Dork Sahagian was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with former US Vice President Albert Gore. Dork Sahagian was born in 1954 in the state of Pennsylvania, in an Armenian family. Dork Sahagian is a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lehigh University.

The paternal grandfather of French professor Emmanuel Charpentier, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of the genome editing method,” was an Armenian who fled to France during the Armenian Genocide and met his future wife in Marseille. In his interview to Public Radio of Armenia, Charpentier noted: “It’s a very odd story that my father actually found out much later. So my surname should not have been Charpentier. It should have been an Armenian surname.” Charpentier emphasized that his grandfather’s last name was Sinanyan.

By the way, Daron Acemoglu is one of the prominent figures who demanded the release of Armenian prisoners illegally held in Baku.

Syuzanna Hambardzumyan