A trio of economists just won a Nobel prize for their insights into how democratic and other inclusive institutions are critical for a nation’s prosperity.

This year’s winners of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, usually called the Nobel prize in economics, argue that it depends on the quality of government. In 2001 the three men—Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson,

The Nobel laureates in the economic sciences have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity. Societies with a poor rule of law and exploitative institutions do not generate growth or change for the better.