Tope Fasua Questions African Economists’ Lack of Nobel Recognition

What changed

On 25 October 2026, Tope Fasua published an argument about why African economists have not won the Nobel Prize in economics.

His central point is that African economists may be especially well placed to study informality, which is widespread across African economies and linked to historical dislocations and distrust of imported systems.

Why it matters

The argument shifts the question from who receives recognition to what kinds of economic knowledge deserve attention. Informality is not a side issue in economies where people and businesses operate outside systems designed elsewhere. It is part of how those economies function.

That gives African economists a distinctive subject to investigate: how distrust, disruption and locally developed arrangements shape economic life. The unanswered question is whether universities and prize institutions value that kind of insight as highly as theories built around formal systems.

This is an argument about recognition, not a documented explanation for Nobel Prize outcomes. Its force lies in identifying a gap between the economic realities African researchers may understand most closely and the ideas that receive the greatest international prestige.