Nobel Laureate James A. Robinson ’93 PhD receives the 2026 Wilbur Cross Medal

Economist James Robinson ’93 PhD, recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, will returns to campus October 19, 2026 to receive the highest honor that the Graduate School bestows on its alumni: the Wilbur Cross Medal.

The Wilbur Cross Medal, named in honor of former Graduate School Dean and Governor of Connecticut Wilbur Lucius Cross, was established in 1966 to honor PhD alumni of Yale Graduate School for outstanding achievements like those of Dean Cross during his multifaceted career.

Medalists are nominated by their peers in recognition of their achievements as leaders in their respective fields, true innovators, and world-changing thinkers. They are among the best examples of what can be accomplished with a doctoral degree after leaving Yale.

An economist and political scientist, Robinson has conducted influential research in the field of political and economic development and the relationships between political power and institutions and prosperity. His work explores the underlying causes of economic and political divergence both historically and today and uses both the mathematical and quantitative methods of economics along with the case study, qualitative and fieldwork methodologies used in other social sciences.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Robinson with the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the importance of societal institutions to a country’s prosperity. He shared the prize with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, who are both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his co-authors on a series of studies that have used empirical and theoretical approaches to examine how institutions are formed and affect whether a country succeeds of fails.

Learn more about the Wilbur Cross Medal here. The 2026 Medalists will be honored on Monday, October 19, 2026. Each honoree will give a public lecture during the campus visit.

Robinson joins Carol Carter ’72 PhD (Microbiology), James Dieterich ’68 PhD (Geology & Geophysics), and Amy Richlin ’78 PhD (Classics) in receiving this year’s medal.