Simon Johnson
Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan
About
Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he heads the Global Economics and Management group and co-directs the Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. He served as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2007 to 2008. In 2024, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences alongside Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson for their studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity. He co-authored Power and Progress: Our 1,000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, which argues that technological progress does not automatically benefit society broadly.
Key Contributions
- 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for research on institutions and prosperity
- Co-authored Power and Progress on technology, AI, and shared prosperity
- Former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund
- Pioneer in research linking institutional quality to economic development
- Co-founder of The Baseline Scenario economics blog
Videos & Interviews
Technology and Inequality in the Age of AI
San Francisco Fed talk on how AI may deepen inequality without deliberate institutional choices
Watch on YouTube
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
Berkeley BESI talk with Brad DeLong on a thousand years of technology shaping prosperity
Watch on YouTube
