Economist Kirk Doran awarded Panmure House prize

University of Notre Dame economist Kirk Doran has won the 2024 Adam Smith Panmure House Prize.

The $75,000 prize was established in 2021, and rewards research that explores the relationship between long-term, interdisciplinary thinking and radical innovation. Last year’s winner was Joseph Henrich of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

Doran is an innovation economist, and his research seeks to identify where and how new knowledge is created in order to find the cause of long-term per capita economic growth. 

Commenting on the award, Doran said: “I am particularly inspired by the prize’s aim to explore the relationship between long-term thinking and radical innovation. This is exactly what our current incentive structures both within and outside academia under-incentivize, and that is why Panmure House’s work is so essential here.”

Panmure House is a house in Edinburgh, Scotland, where philosopher and economist Adam Smith was a tenant between 1778 and 1790. Edinburgh Business School and Heriot-Watt University rescued the building in 2008, and it is maintained as a center of excellence for the study of contemporary economics.