Simon H. Johnson (born January 16, 1963) is a British-American economist who has served as the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management since 2004. He also served as a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics from 2008 to 2019. Before moving to MIT, he taught at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business from 1991 to 1997. From March 2007 through the end of August 2008, he served as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund. In 2024, Johnson, Daron Acemoglu, and James A. Robinson were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their comparative studies in prosperity between nations.
Education Born in 1963 in Sheffield, Johnson was privately educated at Abbotsholme School in Rocester and then went onto read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford where he was an undergraduate student at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and graduated in 1984. He then received an MA in economics (with distinction) from the University of Manchester in 1986. He went on to doctoral study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was advised by Rudiger Dornbusch and received a PhD in economics in 1989, writing a dissertation entitled Inflation, intermediation, and economic activity.
Career and research From 1989 to 1991, Johnson was a junior scholar at Harvard University, where he was a member of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a fellow of its Russian Research Center. From 1991 to 1997, he taught at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, where he was an assistant professor until 1995, and an associate professor until 1997; he also directed its Center for Manager Development in St Petersburg, Russia from 1993 to 1995. He joined the faculty of MIT in 1997, and was tenured in 2002. At MIT, he is a research affiliate at Blueprint Labs, co-directs MIT's Shaping the Future of Work Initiative, and heads its Global Economics and Management Group. Johnson has been a research associate at the NBER since 2004, and is an affiliate of BREAD. He is a fellow of the CEPR, and has sat on the board of directors of Fannie Mae since 2021. He co-founded the CFA Institute’s Systemic Risk Council, and has been a monthly columnist at Project Syndicate since 2010. In November 2020, Johnson was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve. In June 2026 the UK government announced the formation of the AI Economics Institute, with Johnson as chair.
Affiliations Johnson is a member of the International Advisory Council at the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE). He is also a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers. From 2006 to 2007, he was a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he was a senior fellow from 2008 to 2019. He is on the editorial board of four academic economics journals. He has contributed to Project Syndicate since 2007.
Research Simon Johnson is the author of papers such as "Learning from Ricardo and Thompson: Machinery and Labor in the Early Industrial Revolution, and in the Age of AI" or "A Theory of Price Caps on Non-Renewable Resources". He wrote the 2010 book 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (ISBN 978-0307379054), along with James Kwak, with whom he has also co-founded and regularly contributes to the economics blog The Baseline Scenario. He is also author of White House Burning: Our National Debt and Why It Matters to You (2013); Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream (2019), with Jonathan Gruber; and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023), with Daron Acemoglu.
Power and Progress
Published in 2023, Power and Progress is a book on the historical development of technology and the social and political consequences of technology. The book addresses three questions, on the relationship between new machines and production techniques and wages, on the way in which technology could be harnessed for social goods, and on the reason for the enthusiasm around artificial intelligence (AI). Power and Progress argues that technologies do not automatically yield social goods, their benefits going to a narrow elite. It offers a rather critical view of artificial intelligence, stressing its largely negative impact on jobs and wages and on democracy. Acemoglu and Johnson also provide a vision about how new technologies could be harnessed for social good. They see the Progressive Era as offering a model. And they discuss a list of policy proposals for the redirection of technology that includes market incentives, the break up of big tech, tax reform, investing in workers, privacy protection and data ownership, and a digital advertising tax.
Award He received in 2025 a Carnegie Corporation of New York Great Immigrant Award
Personal life Johnson is married with two daughters.
See also Brown–Kaufman amendment Colonial Origins of Comparative Development
References
Further reading Johnson, Simon, "The Quiet Coup", Atlantic Monthly, May 2009
External links Simon Johnson on Nobelprize.org Faculty profile at MIT Johnson's co-blog at MIT Profile at the International Monetary Fund Column archive at Project Syndicate CV of Simon Johnson at the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE) Appearances on C-SPAN Video (with audio-only available) of conversation with Johnson about economic issues on Bloggingheads.tv Simon Johnson's economics blog "Baseline Scenario" Interview with BBC Peter Day's World of Business – Podcast MIT video presentation of "13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown" April 16 2010 appearance on Bill Moyer's Journal, joined by colleague James Kwak Roberts, Russ (November 28, 2011). "Simon Johnson on the Financial Crisis". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.
