Two more prominent awards for Economics

Univ of Chicago has given 9 Nobel Prize Winners as per Nobel Prize Committee list (They basically see what Univ is one at at the time of award, so someone who gets an award when he is at MIT but has taught earlier at Univ of Chicago, The committee would cite MIT in its award). This press release from Univ of Chicago tells me till 2004, out of 55 Nobel laureates 23 were associated with Univ of Chicago either as students, associate professors etc. This is quite a number.

Thanks to Economic Principals, I just came to know about 2 more awards:

1. Bernácer Prize : awarded by Observatory of the European Central Bank given to European Economist under 40 (similar to Clark Medal). Given every year and is named in honour of Germán Bernácer (1883-1965), the first Spanish economist who made significant contributions to the development of macroeconomic research, the BERNÁCER PRIZE was established in 2001 to recognise the work of young economists from the European Union and to stimulate research on European macroeconomics and financial issues.

There have been 5 winners so far:

• 2001 Philip Lane (Trinity College Dublin),
• 2002 José Manuel Campa (Graduate School of Business New York University and University of Navarra)
• 2003 Luigi Zingales (GSB Chicago),
• 2004 Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe (Duke),
• 2005 Monika Piazzesi (GSB Chicago) and
• 2006 Hélène Rey (Princeton)

Again 3 out of 7 are from Univ of Chicago!! Another thing to note is that where as we have only one woman who has won the Clark Medal. here it pretty Even-Stevens.

2. The Elaine Bennett Research Prize : Awarded by American Economic Association (the one that also gives the Clark Medal) and is awarded every other year to recognize, support, and encourage outstanding contributions by young women in the economics profession. Elaine Bennett, made significant contributions in economic theory and experimental economics and encouraged the work of young women in all areas of economics.

The winners:

• 1998 Judith Chevalier (GSB Chicago....has now moved to Yale)
• 2000 Susan Athey (MIT.... has now moved to Harvard)
• 2002 Esther Duflo (MIT)
• 2004 Marianne Bertrand (GSB Chicago)
• 2006 Monika Piazzesi (GSB Chicago)

Out of the two lists I have only read Esther Duflo( just a bit though) and Luigi Zingales (a little more) . Duflo focuses on development research and Zingales on Financial Economics.

Zingales is a star and his research work on financial markets is quite extraordinary and always provides a lot of food for thought. He has written extensively with Raghuram Rajan and together have written some landmark papers on capital structure, impact of finance on growth, underdevelopment ( I mentioned about their work here and here). His/Their work is a must read for all looking at finance as their careers.