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Simon Johnson (economist)

British-American economist (born 1963)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ1461050
Source-derived summary

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.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Simon Johnson (economist)” as british-American economist (born 1963). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963, 2004, 2008, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1963-01-16. The account is most persuasive where Simon, Johnson and economist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british-American economist (born 1963). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1461050. VIAF identifies the subject as 10906752. The Library of Congress control number is n88231097. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 2004, 2008 and 2019.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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  2. Expand the search: follow Simon Johnson (economist) primary sources, Simon Johnson (economist) archive and Simon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Simon Johnson (economist)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.