On Friday, July 3, Bilkent University conferred an honorary doctorate upon Daron Acemoğlu, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The conferral ceremony, which took place in Mithat Çoruh Auditorium, opened with a mini concert, after which Prof. Acemoğlu received his honorary doctorate from Rector Abdullah Atalar.
During the ceremony, Prof. Erinç Yeldan, dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, noted that Prof. Acemoğlu is one of the most eminent economists of his era and has also made many contributions to the fields of political science and electronics engineering.
The honorary doctorate from Bilkent was conferred in recognition of his contributions to economic science.
After the ceremony, Prof. Acemoğlu gave a presentation, “Rethinking the Wealth of Nations,” in which he shared his ideas with reference to his highly regarded book (coauthored with James Robinson) “Why Nations Fail.”
Prof. Acemoğlu is a member of the Economic Growth program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He is also affiliated with the US National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Economic Performance, the Center for Economic Policy Research and the Microsoft Research Center.
He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association and the Society of Labor Economists.
A graduate of the University of York (BA in economics, 1989) and the London School of Economics (MSc in mathematical economics and econometrics, 1990, and PhD in economics, 1992), Prof. Acemoğlu has subsequently held the positions of lecturer at the London School of Economics and assistant professor, associate professor and professor of economics at MIT. He currently holds MIT’s Elizabeth and James Killian Chair in Economics.
He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the award for best paper published in The Economic Journal in 1996 for his work “Consumer Confidence and Rational Expectations: Are Agents’ Beliefs Consistent With the Theory?”; the inaugural T. W. Shultz Prize from the University of Chicago in 2004; the inaugural Sherwin Rosen Award for outstanding contributions to labor economics in 2004; the Distinguished Science Award from the Turkish Sciences Association in 2006; and the John von Neumann Award from Rajk College (Budapest) in 2007.
In addition, he was in 2005 awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years by the American Economic Association to the best economist in the US under the age of 40. Prof. Acemoğlu also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Utrecht.