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2024諾貝爾經濟學獎三位得主研究小評
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0. Foreword
我下筆時原來想以「讀者投書」方式寄到《交談》雜誌；寫完後才發現該刊「讀者投書」欄有72小時的期限。我的英文程度只寫得出淺顯文字，應該不需要翻譯成中文。
福卡博士的原文請見本欄(2024/10/18和2024/11/01)；下文第4節討論「外援」部份，請參考此欄(2024/11/02福山博士大作)；2024諾貝爾經濟學獎三位得主的相關意見，請參考此欄。
After reading the Q&A between Dr. Foucart and editors of the Conversation on the contribution of the 2024 Nobel Economics laureates, I’d like to share my two cents.
I’m a retired engineer and not a student of politics, economics, or any other fields of science. I didn’t read Why Nations Fail. I did read its reviews by Mr. Bass, Mr. Friedman, and Dr. Fukuyama.
1. Historians record and analyze what happened in the past. Historical “facts”, if they were indeed what happened and not some filtered or idealized events, are phenomena. From them we can get the what and how of things happened. One can infer correlation of event A and event B based on these two. The why part, i.e., the “causal evidence” or causal relation of the two events has to be derived from theories in physical science or social science such as biology, economics, sociology, political science, psychology, and last but not least, neuroscience (sorry, that piece is in Chinese so are the next two).
2. I wrote a brief analysis on the why of human behavior called greed, avarice, and the like. My key argument is that the exchange value of resources drives people to rob, steal, plunder, embezzle, and so on.
3. Institutions do not come out of nowhere. In and by itself an institution does not do anything. They are tools designed and used by people for particular purposes such as maintaining and promoting their own wealth, status, interest, and what have you. Therefore, we need to look into people behind the institutions to make sense of the how and why institutions work the way they do. We need to apply the same analytical method to understand why there is a correlation between institutions and prosperity.
4. To discuss foreign aid policy in a vacuum will never help us understand how it works and why it fails. To know the real world of foreign aid is to face events like the overthrown of Mosaddegh and Allende, assassinations of the Ngo brothers and other victims of the CIA covert operation squarely. As far as I can see, most of the foreign aids are nothing but protection rackets executed at the international level such as the military aid to Taiwan. They are also used to prop up mercenary regimes here and there to carry out the dirty job for the U.S. government and/or multi-nationals. The administrations of King Pahlavi and General Pinochet as well as the mass killing in Indonesia are infamous examples that come to mind.
5. Based on what’s been said above, I define politics as “competition for the power to allocate resources.” With that definition in mind, we get a clearer view of why political events play out in their seemingly contradictory ways.
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《制度健全為國家富庶之本》譯述
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0. 前言
該文是《交談》雜誌編輯，就2024諾貝爾經濟學獎三位得主的「研究成果」以及它們何以「重要」這兩個議題，和經濟學家福卡博士的對話(請見本欄上一篇評論，正文為四段「問答」)。它可以幫助我們進一步了解：2024三位諾貝爾經濟學獎得主研究所得到的重點及其意義(請參見此欄和此欄)。
1) 原文中「編者前言」一節我就不做解讀。
2) 第1節節譯述《制度健全為國家富庶之本》一文中四個「對談」；關鍵處就我對原文的了解略做說明。
3) 第2節原來的規畫是：就我所知，對三位經濟學獎得主的「研究結論」略做評論。但需要些時間，就暫時從略；且待下回分解(請參見本欄下一篇《小評》)。
敬請指正。
此外，2024三位諾貝爾經濟學獎得主著作等身，對他們研究課題有興趣的朋友，自可到《維基百科》或其它學術資源搜尋它們的論文或著作。
1. 譯述
以下各節中，福卡博士在表達自己意見前，都會引用三位經濟學獎得主，尤其是阿齊模格教授的觀點。為了行文簡潔，我無法一一註明；請各位從原文脈絡中自行分辨。
1.1 研究主題
《交談》雜誌編輯的第一個問題是：三位經濟學家的研究成果有何特殊之處，讓他們脫穎而出？
福卡博士的回答一針見血：三位經濟學家的研究認為：
一國「『制度』是否『健全』？」，跟該國「『人民』是否『富庶』？」，這兩個狀況之間關係的「因果證據」。
我們也可以說，三位諾貝爾經濟學獎得主的研究成果顯示：
「制度健全」和「國家富庶」兩者具有「正相關」的關係。
福卡博士同時指出，三位經濟學家的研究成果雖然「眾人皆知」，甚至可以稱之為「老生常談」；但他們三位用歷史資料「證實」了這個「關係」。也就是說，三位的貢獻在於給這個「老生常談」建立了它升格成為「理論」的「學術基礎」。
1.2 研究成果
福卡博士在回答第二個問題時，進一步說明三位得主的研究結果和這些結果受到重視的原因。關於這一點，他的說明如下：
三位經濟學家其實並非從研究當下各國的「富庶」開始。福卡博士引用三位2002年一篇論文《鴻運逆轉》(1)，指出三位學者的研究始於以下這個「假設」：
歐洲國家開始經營殖民地時(2)，如果一個地區資源非常豐富，同時又不適合外來者居住，殖民者將毫無顧忌的盡量掠奪當地資源。
在這種情況下，殖民者在當地所建立的制度和基礎設施，只會以掠奪資源為目的；不會為當地居民的福利著想。這個狀況會延續到獨立之後，導致該地人民今天的窮困。
為了說明這個現象，三位得主中阿齊模格教授和羅賓生教授在2008發表了這篇《權力、精英、和制度的恆久性》論文(3)，說明「制度」能夠產生本身的「恆久性」。這個貢獻也是他們今年獲獎的原因之一。
相對於上述「假設」，三位得主相信：如果一個地區適於人們居住，同時又相對落後，殖民者將不以掠奪當地資源為優先考量；而會居住下來試圖建立一個富庶的家園。從而，在自私自利的動機下，殖民者會建立和於民主原則的機制來追求幸福生活。
阿齊模格教授和羅賓生教授在《國家為什麼失敗》一書中(4)，根據考察殖民地演變史料，三位得主得出他們「鴻運逆轉」的結論：
1) 在1500年最城市化和人口密集的的地方，到1995年成為最貧窮的地區。
2) 如果殖民者水土不服會因疾病死亡而離去，只有原住民留下的地區，在也1995也變得比較貧窮。
三位針對「制度」和「殖民地」關係的研究，在試圖釐清「制度」和「經濟繁榮」兩者間的「因」、「果」關係。這可能是他們三位在今年獲獎的原因。
1.3 研究應用 – 中國
福卡博士以中國為例子說明：
1) 「民主制度」和「經濟繁榮」兩者間沒有直接的「因」、「果」關係。
2) 「制度」和「經濟繁榮」兩者間有一定的「正相關」關係。
3) 中國和其他「已發展」國家比來相對「貧窮」；可能與她的「制度」不夠「健全」有關。
原文 ”power of institutions” 一詞指：「制度的『力道』」或「制度功能的『大小』」；而不是指：「制度的『權力』」。
福卡博士的評論提醒我們回頭思考：
前幾年中共領導人對「非公有」企業和「非公有」企業家的打壓，是否多多少少成為導致當下中國面臨經濟困境的「助緣」？
我認為，一個社會是否能夠維持「穩定運作」而欣欣向榮，端視此社會中：在「制度外」長袖善舞的黑手有幾隻？有多長？力量有多大？此處請參考：拙作關於「法權」和「便宜行事」的討論；以及拙作關於「制度」和「便宜行事」的討論(該文1.2節)。
1.4 研究應用 – 美、歐
福卡博士在回答《交談》雜誌編輯最後一個問題時指出：
1) 阿齊模格教授對美、歐國家老百姓支持「民主政治」程度日益降低感到憂心；實事上，許多民主國家人民並不了解保障自己國家制度正常運作的重要性。
2) 選民們不應把「經濟繁榮」和導致她/他們失望、不滿、和憤怒的「遊戲規則」一起拋棄；因為後者是實現前者的前提和基礎。
附註：
1. 我沒有腦力去讀這篇長達60多頁的論文；此處說明根據我對福卡博士評論的解讀；如果有誤解之處，敬請指正。
2. 原文 ” … living conditions at the start of European colonialism in the 14th century.”中，”14th century” 或為鍵誤，或另有所指；見正文中「殖民地」的超連接。
3. 同附註1的說明。
4. 我沒有讀這本書；正文中的超連接，為2012年《華盛頓郵報》上一篇就該書所做的評論。
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制度健全為國家富庶之本 ---- Renaud Foucart
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原文中並未分節，也沒有附上子標題；它們是我做的的編輯工作。請參見本攔上兩篇相關報導以及下一篇《譯述》。
Nobel economics prize: how colonial history explains why strong institutions are vital to a country’s prosperity – expert Q&A
Renaud Foucart, 10/14/24
0. 編者前言
This year’s Nobel memorial prize in economics has gone to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and James Robinson of the University of Chicago for their work on why there are such vast differences in prosperity between nations.
While announcing the award, Jakob Svensson, the chairman of the economics prize committee, said: “Reducing the huge differences in income between countries is one of our times’ greatest challenges”. The economists’ “groundbreaking research” has given us a “much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”
The award, which was established several decades after the original Nobel prizes in the 1960s, is technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences. The academics will share the award and its 11 million kroner (£810,000) cash prize.
To explain their work and why it matters, we talked to Renaud Foucart, a senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University in the UK.
1. 研究主題
What did Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson win for?
The three academics won the prize mostly for providing causal evidence of the influence of the quality of a country’s institutions on its economic prosperity.
At first glance, this may seem like reinventing the wheel. Most people would agree that a country that enforces property rights, limits corruption, and protects both the rule of law and the balance of power, will also be more successful at encouraging its citizens to create wealth, and be better at redistributing it.
But anyone following the news in Turkey, Hungary, the US or even the UK, will be aware that not everyone agrees. In Hungary for instance, cases of corruption, nepotism, a lack of media pluralism, and threats to the independence of the judiciary have led to a fierce battle with the European Union.
Rich countries typically have strong institutions. But several (wannabe) leaders are perfectly comfortable with weakening the rule of law. They do not seem to see institutions as the cause of their prosperity, just as something that happens to be correlated.
2. 研究成果
In their view, why does the quality of institutions vary across countries?
Their work starts with something that has clearly not had a direct effect on today’s economic prosperity: living conditions at the start of European colonialism in the 14th century. Their hypothesis is that, the richer and the more inhospitable to outsiders a place was, the more colonial powers were interested in brutally stealing the country’s riches.
In that case, they built institutions without any regard for the people living there. This led to low quality institutions during the colonial period, that continued through independence and led to bad economic conditions today.
All of this is because – and this is another domain to which this year’s laureates contributed – institutions create the conditions of their own persistence.
In contrast, in more hospitable and less developed places, colonialists did not take resources. They instead settled and tried to create wealth. So, it was in their (selfish) interest to build democratic institutions that benefited people living there.
The researchers then tested their hypothesis by looking at historical data. First, they found a “great reversal” of fortune. Places that were the most urbanised and densely populated in 1500 became the poorest by 1995. Second, they found that places where settlers died quickly from disease and could therefore not stay – while local populations were mostly immune – are also poorer today.
Looking at the colonial roots of institutions is an attempt to disentangle causes and consequences. It is also perhaps the main reason why the committee would say that even if this year’s laureates did not invent the idea that institutions matter, their contribution is worthy of the highest distinction.
3. 研究應用 – 中國
Some have suggested the work simply argues ‘democracy means economic growth’. Is this true?
Not in a vacuum. For instance, their work does not tell us that imposing democracy from scratch on a country with otherwise malfunctioning institutions will work. There is no reason for a democratic leader not to become corrupt.
Institutions are a package. And this is why it is so important to preserve their different aspects today. Weakening even a little bit of the protections the state offers to citizens, workers, entrepreneurs and investors may then lead to a vicious circle where people do not feel safe that they will be defended against corruption or expropriation. And this leads to lower prosperity and more calls for authoritarian rules.
There may also be outliers. China is clearly trying to push the idea that capitalism without a liberal democracy can be compatible with economic success.
The growth of China since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the 1980s coincides with the introduction of stronger property rights for entrepreneurs and businesses. And, in that sense, it is a textbook version of the power of institutions.
But it is also true that Deng Xiaoping ordered the crushing by the military of the Tiananmen Square protests for democracy in 1989. China today also has a clearly more authoritarian system than western democracies.
And China is still much poorer than its democratic counterparts, despite being the world’s second-largest economy. China’s GDP per capita is not even a fifth of that of the US, and it is facing major economic challenges of its own.
Actually, according to Acemoglu, Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian regime is the reason why China’s economy is “rotting from the head”.
4. 研究應用 – 歐、美
What trajectory are democratic institutions throughout the world currently on?
Acemoglu has expressed concern that democratic institutions in the US and Europe are losing support from the population. And, indeed, many democracies do seem to be doubting the importance of protecting their institutions.
They flirt with giving more power to demagogues who claim it is possible to be successful without a strong set of rules that bind the hands of the rulers. I doubt today’s prize will have the slightest influence on them.
But if there is one message to take home from the work of this year’s laureates, it is that voters should be cautious not to throw the baby of economic prosperity with the bathwater of the sometimes frustrating rules that sustain it.
Renaud Foucart is a Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University.
Disclosure statement
Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For More Readings
* Development
* Inequality
* Economic growth
* Democratic institutions
* Prosperity
* Nobel Prize 2024
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經濟學獎：「國際不對等現象」研究者 2 – S. Johnson/K. Tagaris
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Nobel economics prize goes to inequality researchers
Simon Johnson and Karolina Tagaris, 10/15/24
Summary
* Research shows link between institutions and prosperity
* Acemoglu urges democracies to reclaim better governance
* Johnson says Nov. 5 a 'stress test' for U.S. democracy
* Past winners include Milton Friedman and John Nash
* Economics was final prize awarded in 2024 Nobels
STOCKHOLM, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Three U.S.-based academics won the 2024 Nobel economics prize on Monday for research that explored the aftermath of colonisation to understand why global inequality persists today, especially in countries dogged by corruption and dictatorship.
Simon Johnson and James Robinson, both British-American, and Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu were commended for their work on "how institutions are formed and affect prosperity", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
"Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time's greatest challenges," said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.
"They have identified the historical roots of the weak institutional environments that characterize many low-income countries today," he told a press conference.
The award came a day after a World Bank report showed that the world's 26 poorest countries - home to 40% of its most poverty-stricken people - are more in debt than at any time since 2006, highlighting a major reversal in the fight against poverty.
The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
Acemoglu told reporters in Athens that data gathered by pro-democracy groups showed that public institutions and rule of law in many parts of the world were currently being weakened.
"Authoritarian growth is often more unstable and doesn't generally lead to very rapid and original innovation," he said, referring to China as "a bit of a challenge".
Johnson told Reuters by telephone that established institutions in the United States were under stress, notably due to Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.
"I think that's the biggest concern that I see in the industrialised world," he said, adding the Nov. 5 presidential election was "a serious stress test" for U.S. democracy.
Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is at the University of Chicago, where he spoke at a press conference on Monday and referred to his co-laureates as his "best friends."
"I'm not someone who thinks that economists have a kind of cure for everything, or they have some silver bullet," he said. "Ideas are important in terms of giving people levers or giving people ways to think about the problems in their society."
He said all humans have the same aspirations and a shared history but have nonetheless "built very different societies in different parts of the world."
"The first thing is to think about a question that's relevant to those people, to their context and to their aspirations," he said of his research.
'REVERSAL OF FORTUNE'
The laureates' research showed how European colonisation had dramatic but divergent impacts across the world, depending on whether the coloniser focused on extraction of resources or the setting up of long-term institutions for the benefit of European migrants.
This, they found, resulted in a "reversal of fortune" where former colonies that were once rich become poor, while some poorer countries - where institutions were often set up - were in the end able to garner some generalised prosperity through them.
Another finding covered how "dangerous" it was to colonise an area: the higher mortality among the colonisers, the lower today's current output per capita, a measure of prosperity.
The economics award is not one of the original prizes for science, literature and peace created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901, but a later addition established and funded by Sweden's central bank in 1968.
Past winners include a host of influential thinkers such as Milton Friedman, John Nash - played by actor Russell Crowe in the 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind" - and, more recently, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Research into inequality has featured strongly in recent awards. Last year, Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin won the prize for her work highlighting the causes of wage and labour market inequality between men and women.
In 2019, economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the award for work on fighting poverty.
The economics prize has been dominated by U.S. academics since its inception, while U.S.-based researchers also tend to account for a large portion of winners in the scientific fields for which 2024 laureates were announced last week.
That crop of prizes began with U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the prize for medicine on Monday and concluded with Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, an organisation of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who campaigned for the abolition of nuclear weapons landing the award for peace on Friday.
Reporting by Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Mark John in London and Karolina Tagaris in Athens; additional reporting by Niklas Pollard in Stockholm and Terje Solsvik in Oslo; Editing by Alex Richardson and Nick Zieminski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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經濟學獎：「國際不對等現象」研究者 -- PS Editors
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《評論彙編》雜誌報導了2024諾貝爾經濟學獎的三位得主以及他們的研究主題。轉載於下。
此外，該刊「宏觀世界」欄同時刊登了多篇三位學者研究的重點、結果、和應用。由於他們是新科諾貝爾獎得主，想必都有那麼幾把刷子。我將分別把這些論述轉載到本城市各相關討論版，敬請期待。
索引：
civil society：請參考拙作《公民社會(譯述)》與《「徒法不足以自行」之公民社會》(該欄2010/11/13)
creative destruction：經濟活動中的「除舊布新」(或「汰舊換新」、「新陳代謝」)
institutions：依脈絡理解為(並翻譯為)：「制度」，(落實該「制度」的) 「機關」、「機構」，或(該「制度」得以運作的) 「法規」、「程序」、「流程」、…等等
kleptocratic：以權謀私的
Ricardo, David：瑞卡鐸
Nobel Laureates Help Solve the Inequality Puzzle
Project Syndicate Editors, 10/14/24
While even the world’s poorest economies have become richer in recent decades, they have continued to lag far behind their higher-income counterparts – and the gap is not getting any smaller. According to this year’s Nobel Prize-winning economists, institutions are a key reason why. From Ukraine’s reconstruction to the regulation of artificial intelligence, the implications are as consequential as they are far-reaching.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson for improving our understanding of the relationship between institutions and prosperity. These scholars’ theoretical tools for analyzing why and when institutions change have significantly enhanced our ability to explain – and address – the vast differences in wealth between countries.
Policymakers’ failure to grasp how institutions work was on stark display in Afghanistan. As Acemoglu explained in 2021, the country’s “humiliating collapse,” and the Taliban’s takeover following America’s chaotic withdrawal, reflected the deeply misguided idea that a “functioning state” could be “imposed from above by foreign forces.” As he and Robinson had previously shown, “this approach makes no sense when your starting point is a deeply heterogeneous society organized around local customs and norms, where state institutions have long been absent or impaired.”
Leaders should not make the same mistakes during Ukraine’s reconstruction. As Acemoglu and Robinson observed in 2019, following the collapse of communism, the country “remained trapped by kleptocratic institutions that bred a culture of corruption and destroyed public trust.” If the country is to thrive after the current war ends, it will need to avoid a top-down restoration of the “extractive institutions” of the past, and instead engage civil society to “build better institutions” from the ground up.
Acemoglu and Johnson have argued that a better understanding of institutions should also guide US policy toward China. Though the rise of Chinese manufacturing seemed to be a perfect example of the nineteenth-century economist David Ricardo’s famous “law of comparative advantage,” China always owed that advantage to repressive institutions. So, far from making everyone better off, as Ricardo’s law assumes, China’s economic might “threatens global stability and US interests” in ways that must – and, increasingly, do – shape US policy toward the country.
And it is not just China. As Acemoglu has shown, “the post-Cold War project of globalization also created the conditions for resurgent nationalism around the world,” such as in Hungary, India, Russia, and Turkey. In this context, the West must rethink its approach to engagement, both economic and political, with these countries.
Ricardo’s insights are also relevant to debates about artificial intelligence, noted Acemoglu and Johnson earlier this year. Whether machines “destroy or create jobs all depends on how we deploy them, and on who makes those choices,” they write, noting that it “took major political reforms to create genuine democracy, to legalize trade unions, and to change the direction of technological progress in Britain during the Industrial Revolution.” Likewise, building “pro-worker” AI today will require us to “change the direction of innovation in the tech industry and introduce new regulations and institutions.”
According to Acemoglu, three principles should guide policymakers.
First, measures must be put in place to help those who are adversely affected by the “creative destruction” that accompanies technological progress.
Second, “we should not assume that disruption is inevitable.” For example, rather than designing and deploying AI “only with automation in mind” – an approach that Acemoglu and Johnson have pointed out would have “dire implications for Americans’ spending power” – we should tap its “immense potential to make workers more productive.”
Finally, the era of innovators moving fast and breaking things must be put behind us. It is imperative that we “pay greater attention to how the next wave of disruptive innovation could affect our social, democratic, and civic institutions.”
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Nobel Updates: Peace Prize Is Awarded to Japanese Group of Atomic Bomb Survivors
Nihon Hidankyo is a grass-roots movement of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The group’s efforts have helped establish a “nuclear taboo,” the Nobel committee said.
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Megan Specia and Lynsey Chutel, 10/11/24Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel committee said that Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese grass-roots movement of “hibakusha,” or atomic bombing survivors, has demonstrated that “nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
This movement is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
Here is what to know about Nihon Hidankyo.
The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grass-roots movement of atomic bomb survivors, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”
Nihon Hidankyo has for decades represented hundreds of thousands of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These survivors, known as the hibakusha, are living memorials to the horror of the attacks and have used their testimony to raise awareness of the human consequences of nuclear warfare.
The Nobel — one of the world’s most prestigious honors — recognizes the group at a time when survivors of the attacks, which killed an estimated 200,000 people, are mostly in their 80s and are dying by the hundreds each month. And it comes as the world confronts increasing worries about Russia’s veiled threats that it could use its arsenal as the war in Ukraine continues and about the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.
“The hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said during his announcement on Friday.
Mr. Frydnes added that “extraordinary efforts” by survivors of the U.S. nuclear bombings, including those who are part of Nihon Hidankyo, “have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo.” That, he said, had led to a world in which no weapons of that type had been used in war in 80 years.
He added that it was alarming to see that taboo fading in recent years.
Mr. Frydnes said that the Nobel committee, in honoring Nihon Hidankyo, wished “to honor all survivors who despite physical suffering and painful memories have chosen to use their painful experience to cultivate hope.”
The Peace Prize is arguably the most distinguished of the Nobels, and its recipients have often been celebrated global figures, such as Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, President Barack Obama and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
The 2023 prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian human rights activist.
The prize, first awarded in 1901, has also been given to 30 organizations, including twice to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and three times to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The World Food Program, a U.N. agency, received the award in 2020.
This year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which administers the prize, registered 286 candidates, including 197 individuals and 89 organizations.
Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.
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Han Kang Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
The South Korean author, best known for “The Vegetarian,” is the first writer from her country to receive the prestigious award.
Alex Marshall/Alexandra Alter, 10/10/24
Han Kang, the South Korean author best known for her surreal, subversive novel “The Vegetarian,” was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday — the first writer from her country to receive the award.
Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which organizes the prize, said at a news conference in Stockholm that Han was receiving the honor for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
“The Vegetarian,” published in Korea in 2007, won the 2016 International Booker Prize after it was translated into English. It centers on a depressed housewife who shocks her family when she stops eating meat; later, she stops eating altogether and yearns to turn into a tree that can live off sunlight alone. Porochista Khakpour, in a review of “The Vegetarian” for The New York Times, said that Han “has been rightfully celebrated as a visionary in South Korea.”
Han’s Nobel was a surprise. Before the announcement, the bookmakers’ favorite for this year’s award was Can Xue, an avant-garde Chinese writer of category-defying novels. But the news was celebrated by authors and fans on social media and greeted with fanfare in South Korea.
“This is a great achievement for South Korean literature and an occasion for national celebration,” said President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a statement, in which he noted Han’s ability to capture painful episodes from their country’s recent history. Members of the K-pop band BTS also celebrated, with one posting a crying-face emoji and a heart alongside a picture of Han.
Some in the country were astonished to learn a Korean writer had won. “I could not believe my eyes when I saw this news,” said Park Sang-in, an office worker in Seoul. “No one had told us that we had a strong candidate this year.”
At the same time, many saw it as an appropriate choice. Han’s groundbreaking work has reshaped the literary landscape in South Korea, said Paige Aniyah Morris, co-translator of Han’s novel “We Do Not Part,” which will be published by Hogarth in the United States in January.
“Han’s work has inspired a generation of Korean writers to be more truthful and more daring in their subject matter,” Morris said. “Time and time again, she has braved a culture of censorship and saving face, and she has come out of these attempts at silencing her with stronger, more unflinching work each time.”
Han, 53, was born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea. Her father was also a novelist, but much less successful. The family struggled financially and moved frequently. In a 2016 interview with The Times, Han said her transitory upbringing “was too much for a little child, but I was all right because I was surrounded by books.”
When Han was 9, her family moved to Seoul just months before the Gwangju uprising, when government troops fired on crowds of pro-democracy protesters, killing hundreds. The event shaped her views on humanity’s capacity for violence, Han said in the 2016 interview, and its specter has haunted her writing. In her 2014 novel “Human Acts,” a writer observes a police raid on a group of activists.
She also recalled seeing images of people who lined up to donate their blood to those who were injured in the uprising.
“It was like two unsolvable riddles imprinted on my mind: How can humans be so violent, and how can humans be so sublime?” she said. “When I write novels, I find myself always returning to the theme of what it means to be human.”
The novelist Hernan Diaz praised Han’s “unique ear for the rumors of history,” adding that she can “access the traumas that have shaped and bruised entire generations, and she does so without ever turning her novels into mere didactical tools.”
Han studied literature at Yonsei University in Korea, and her first published works were poems. Her debut novel, “Black Deer,” which came out in 1998, was a mystery about a missing woman. In the 2016 interview, Han said it was around that time that she developed the idea for a short story about a woman who becomes a plant, which she eventually developed into “The Vegetarian.”
Following her debut, Han went on to write seven more novels, as well as several novellas and collections of essays and short stories. Among her other novels are “The White Book,” which was also nominated for the International Booker Prize, and “Greek Lessons,” published in English in 2023.
In “Greek Lessons,” a woman loses her ability to speak and tries to restore it by learning ancient Greek. Idra Novey, in a review for The Times, called the novel “a celebration of the ineffable trust to be found in sharing language.”
“Han Kang is a visionary — there’s no other word for it,” said Parisa Ebrahimi, executive editor at Hogarth, Han’s North American publisher, who noted that Han’s work reflects “remarkable insight into the inner lives of women.”
Han’s writing is now celebrated in South Korea, but that took some time, she said, and some of her books were initially greeted with bafflement. “The Vegetarian” was received as “very extreme and bizarre,” Han said.
She had been publishing fiction and poetry for more than two decades before her work was issued in English, after Deborah Smith translated “The Vegetarian” and sold it to a British publisher based on the first 10 pages.
When the English-language edition was released to acclaim in 2016, “The Vegetarian” helped to drive a new wave of translations of more experimental fiction, including works by women with a feminist bent.
“Her work, and the translation and success of her work, has led Korean literature in translation to be edgier and more experimental and daring,” Anton Hur, a South Korean translator and author who is based in Seoul. “She changed the conversation about Korean literature.”
Ankhi Mukherjee, a literature professor at the University of Oxford, said that she had taught Han’s work “year in, year out” for almost two decades. “Her writing is relentlessly political — whether it’s the politics of the body, of gender, of people fighting against the state — but it never lets go of the literary imagination,” Mukherjee said, adding: “It’s never sanctimonious; it’s very playful, funny and surreal.”
The Nobel Prize is literature’s pre-eminent award, and winning it is a capstone to a writer, poet or playwright’s career. Past recipients have included Toni Morrison, Harold Pinter and, in 2016, Bob Dylan. Along with the prestige and a huge boost in sales, the new laureate receives 11 million Swedish krona, about $1 million.
Although relatively young for Nobel laureate, Han is far older than Rudyard Kipling was when he accepted the 1907 award, at age 41.
In recent years, the academy has tried to increase the diversity of authors considered for the literature prize, after facing criticism over the low number of laureates who were female or came from outside Europe and North America.
Since 2020, the academy has awarded the prize to one person of color — Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian writer whose novels dissect the legacy of colonialism — as well as two women: Louise Glück, the American poet, and Annie Ernaux, the French writer of autobiographical works.
Last year’s recipient was Jon Fosse, a Norwegian author and playwright whose novels, told in lengthy sentences, often contain religious undertones.
Han is the 18th woman to receive the Nobel in literature, which has been awarded to 120 writers since 1901.
Some scholars and translators said it was fitting that the first Korean writer to win a Nobel is a woman. Much of the most groundbreaking and provocative contemporary Korean literature is being written by female novelists, including some who are challenging and exposing misogyny and the burdens that are placed on women in South Korea. Yet in media and literary circles, older male writers have often been seen as the most likely contenders for the Nobel.
“For years now, the conversation about how to get Korea its literature prize has not once seemed to seriously consider that the answer might be Han Kang, despite her massive success,” said Morris, who in addition to translating Han has translated work by Korean women like Pak Kyongni and Ji-min Lee. “So it’s a pleasant surprise and a bit of poetic justice to see a woman become the one to end Korea’s literature Nobel drought.”
Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul.
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London. More about Alex Marshall
Alexandra Alter writes about books, publishing and the literary world for The Times. More about Alexandra Alter
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Nobel prize for medicine: US duo Ambros and Ruvkun win for discovery of microRNA
Niklas Pollard/Ludwig Burger/Jonathan Allen, 10/08/24
Summar
* Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun win Nobel medicine prize
* Prize awarded for discovery of microRNA
* Discoveries shed light on role in gene regulation
* Medicine prize the first of this year's Nobel awards
STOCKHOLM, Oct 7 (Reuters) - U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for the discovery of microRNA and its crucial role in how multicellular organisms grow and live.
Their work helped explain how cells specialise and develop into different types, such as muscle and nerve cells, even though all the cells in an individual contain the same set of genes and instructions for growing and staying alive.
"The Nobel's, you know, there's a word we use for Major League Baseball, it's called 'The Show'. Which means it's not any show, it's THE show," Ruvkun told Reuters, describing what it was like being thrust into the global spotlight.
He joked that collaborating with Ambros and receiving previous awards meant they had been "joined at the hip for quite a while".
"That's been great. He's a wonderful guy," Ruvkun added by phone. Ambros seconded by saying he was happy to share the award with "a great friend".
The Nobel Assembly, the award-giving body, said in a statement that the laureates discovered a new class of tiny RNA molecules, which play a crucial role in gene regulation.
"Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans," the assembly said.
Also speaking to Reuters, Ambros described microRNA as a "communication network amongst genes that enables the cells in our bodies to generate all kinds of different complex structures and functions".
Ambros is a professor at the UMass Chan Medical School, while Ruvkun is a professor at Harvard Medical School and also affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
In the late 1980s, Ambros and Ruvkun undertook postdoctorate studies in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, himself a Nobel Prize winner in 2002, studying a 1 mm long roundworm.
Their discoveries on how certain microRNAs in the roundworm govern growth of organs and tissue was initially dismissed as specific to the species.
More work published by Ruvkun's research group in 2000, however, showed that all animal life had relied on the mechanism for more than 500 million years.
BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LIFE
MicroRNA comes into play when single-strand messenger RNA - the subject of last year's Nobel Prize in medicine - is decoded and translated into making proteins, the building blocks of all human and animal life.
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, in turn, emerges from the universal blueprint in every cell nucleus, the double-helix DNA.
Professor Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam of the Karolinska Institute said that, while the 2023 prize was linked to the specific use in COVID-19 vaccines, this year's award was for a leap in basic understanding with many potential future applications.
Janosch Heller, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences at Dublin City University, who was not involved in selecting the winners, said that the findings had boosted the understanding of diseases such as epilepsy.
The winners of the prize for physiology or medicine are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute medical university and receive a prize sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
As in every year, the physiology or medicine prize was the first in the crop of Nobels, arguably the most prestigious prizes in science, literature and humanitarian endeavour, with the remaining five set to be unveiled over the coming days.
Created in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes have been awarded for breakthroughs in science, literature and peace since 1901, while economics is a later addition.
Past winners of the Nobel medicine prize include many famous researchers such as Ivan Pavlov in 1904, most known for his experiments on behaviour using dogs, and Alexander Fleming, who shared the 1945 prize for the discovery of penicillin.
Last year's medicine prize was awarded to the runaway favourites Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian scientist, and U.S. colleague Drew Weissman, for discoveries that paved the way for COVID-19 vaccines that helped curb the pandemic.
Steeped in tradition, the science, literature and economics prizes are presented to the laureates in a ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, followed by a lavish banquet at Stockholm city hall. Separate festivities attend the winner of the peace prize in Oslo on the same day. ($1 = 10.1086 Swedish crowns)
Reporting by Niklas Pollard and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Jonathan Allan in New York; additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm; editing by Alex Richardson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Nobel chemistry prize 2024 goes to protein pioneers Baker, Hassabis and Jumper
Johan Ahlander/Niklas Pollard/Marie Mannes, 10/10/24
Summary
* Baker, Hassabis and Jumper win Nobel chemistry prize
* Prize awarded for work on building blocks of life
* US professor Baker developed tools to create new proteins
* Google DeepMind scientists Hassabis and Jumper used AI to predict protein structures
* Chemistry third award in this year's Nobel line-up
STOCKHOLM, Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S. scientists David Baker and John Jumper and Briton Demis Hassabis won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for work on decoding the structure of proteins and creating new ones, yielding advances in areas such as drug development.
Half the prize was awarded to Baker "for computational protein design" while the other half was shared by Hassabis and Jumper "for protein structure prediction", said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which makes the award.
Baker, 62, is a professor at the University of Washington, in Seattle, while Hassabis, 48, is CEO of Google DeepMind, the AI research subsidiary of Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, where Jumper, 39, also works as senior research scientist.
Hassabis and Jumper utilised artificial intelligence to predict the structure of almost all known proteins, while Baker learned how to master life's building blocks and create entirely new proteins, the award-giving body said.
"It's totally surreal to be honest, quite overwhelming," Hassabis told Reuters, thanking DeepMind and Google, and his colleague Jumper.
"David Baker, we've got to know in the last few years, and he's done some absolutely seminal work in protein design," he said. "So it's really, really exciting to receive the prize with both of them."
The award is the second this week given for work involving artificial intelligence, underscoring the growing importance of machine learning and large language models for science.
"That's always been my passion, but ... it's like any powerful general-purpose technology, it can be used for harm as well if put in the wrong hands and used for the wrong ends," Hassabis said.
The prize, widely regarded as among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
'SPECTACULAR NEW PROTEINS'
Baker said he was sound asleep when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences called.
"The phone rang and they started telling me about the prize and my wife started screaming very loudly," he told Reuters. "So it was a little chaotic at the beginning, but it was very exciting."
Baker said his work with designing new proteins was geared towards solving problems, looking at things like global warming and new diseases.
"If we have a lot of time to wait then new proteins might evolve to solve those problems," he said. "What we have done with protein design is to discover how to make new proteins that can solve new problems."
In 2003, Baker was able to use amino acids, often described as life's building blocks, to design a new protein that was unlike any existing one, the academy said.
That opened the door to the rapid creation of different proteins for uses in areas such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and even tiny sensors.
"He developed computational tools that now enable scientists to design spectacular new proteins with entirely novel shapes and functions, opening endless possibilities for the greatest benefits to humankind," Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said of Baker's contribution.
AI MODEL
In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified, the academy said.
Among the scientific applications for the work, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.
"We could draw a straight line from what we do to people being healthy because of what we learn about biology in the cell and everything else, and it's just extraordinary," Jumper, the youngest chemistry laureate for more than 70 years, told the Nobel website.
The third award to be handed out every year, the chemistry prize follows those for medicine and physics announced earlier this week.
The Nobel prizes were established in the will of dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel and are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
First handed out in 1901, 15 years after Nobel's death, it is awarded for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Recipients in each category share the prize sum that has been adjusted over the years.
The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.
Past winners of the prize for chemistry, a discipline close to Alfred Nobel's heart and the most applicable to his own work as an inventor, have included scientific greats such as radioactivity pioneers Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie.
Alongside the cash prize, the winners will be presented a medal by the Swedish king on Dec. 10, followed by a lavish banquet in Stockholm city hall.
($1 = 10.3632 Swedish crowns)
Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Niklas Pollard, Anna Ringstrom and Marie Mannes in Stockholm and Pavithra George in Washigton D.C; additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Jonathan Allen in New York and Martin Coulter in London; Editing by Alex Richardson and Andrew Heavens
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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