James Robinson is a University Professor at the Harris School for Public Policy, the Committee on Social Thought and Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and recipient of the 2024 Recipient of the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. He studied economics at the London School of Economics, the University of Warwick and Yale University and is co-author with Daron Acemoglu of Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Why Nations Fail (which has been translated into 51 languages, and The Narrow Corridor. His next book, on Sub-Saharan Africa, entitled Wealth in People will be published in 2027. His research uses the quantitative and mathematical methods of economics but in combination with the more qualitative, hermeneutical and case study based approaches of other social sciences. He is currently conducting research in Colombia, South Korea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Nigeria where he is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nigeria-Nsukka and holds the chieftaincy title Nwanne di na Mba from the community of Umuchieze, Imo state. He taught every summer for 28 years at the University of the Andes in Bogotá where he is a Profesor Honorario. He has taught research design in the collaborative PhD program in economics run by the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi where he is a Fellow.