Ufuk Akcigit Awarded Koç University Rahmi M. Koç Medal of Science (2025)

"Economic growth is, at its core, the study of how the future happens,” says Ufuk Akcigit, the Arnold C. Harberger Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Global Center for Economic Growth. “It is the work of tracing the mechanisms by which ideas become innovations, innovations become industries, and those industries, collectively, reshape global progress."

That same curiosity about how nations build prosperity and what drives lasting change sits at the heart of the announcement that recently arrived from Türkiye: Akcigit has been named the 2025 recipient of the Koç University Rahmi M. Koç Medal of Science, one of the country’s most distinguished scientific honors. Reserved for scholars of Turkish origin under the age of 50, the medal recognizes exceptional achievement and influence. A committee of leading academics selected this year’s laureate for groundbreaking contributions to the social sciences.

Born in Germany to Turkish parents, Akcigit returned to Bursa, Türkiye, at the age of four and later completed his middle and high school education in Ankara. He earned his undergraduate degree at Koç University and went on to receive his PhD in Economics from MIT in 2009. Following a faculty appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the University of Chicago’s Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics in 2015.

His early exposure to Germany’s East–West divide left a particularly lasting impression—one that would shape his future scholarship. He saw firsthand how two regions sharing a language, culture, and history could nonetheless diverge sharply in their economic trajectories, and how such differences could persist long after reunification. Later in his formative years, a rapidly changing Türkiye provided a second vantage point, revealing how dynamism, ambition, and structural constraints operate together within an emerging economy. Together, these experiences steered him toward the central question that defines his work: why some nations innovate and prosper while others struggle to catch up.

Following this line of inquiry gained Akcigit international recognition, including the Max Planck–Humboldt Research Award in Halle, which honors scholars whose work bridges disciplines and deepens global understanding of long-run economic development.

Today, Akcigit is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars of economic growth and innovation. His expertise is sought by global institutions. He serves as the Lead Academic for the World Development Report 2024, which examines the middle-income trap, and for the forthcoming World Development Report 2026 on AI and development. He is also a Lead Academic Advisor and Board Member of the World Bank’s Institute for Economic Development and serves as a member of the IMF Managing Director’s Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth.

Akcigit’s research brings together macroeconomics, innovation, entrepreneurship, and firm dynamics to answer pressing economic questions: what drives long-run growth, and how can policy shape it in ways that expand opportunity? His work integrates massive administrative datasets with structural models to illuminate micro-level mechanisms—ideas, incentives, migration, taxation, and access to opportunity—that underpin national prosperity. His collaborations with co-authors around the world have examined many lines of inquiry, from the role of inventors in technological progress, to the impact of state-level policies on firm productivity, to the ways inequality influences innovation.

A recurring theme in his research is the importance of broadening participation in innovative activity—ensuring that talent is not lost due to geography, background, or barriers to mobility. “When we understand who gets to become an inventor or entrepreneur, we understand something fundamental about a society’s capacity to grow,” he explains.

For Akcigit, the Koç Medal carries particular significance, as he is the first Koç University alumnus to receive this honor. The accolade is further meaningful because a previous recipient, Daron Acemoglu of MIT, was Akcigit’s mentor, dissertation adviser, and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. “To receive an award that has also been given to someone who shaped my intellectual path is profoundly humbling and deeply meaningful,” Akcigit says.

Akcigit is the second scholar in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics to receive the Koç Medal; his colleague and the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, Ali Hortaçsu, received the medal in 2021 for his pioneering contributions in industrial organization and market design. 

To learn more about the Rahmi M. Koç Medal of Science and this year's announcement, please visit: https://www.ku.edu.tr