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.

Some facts about Clark Medal and Nobel Prize

Just carrying on with the Clark Medal, I thought I would share some trivia and facts. As Clark Medal is supposed to be for economists under 40, one of the things to see is how many get Nobel finally. Here is a factfile:

• There are 58 nobel winners so far
• There are 29 clark medal winners
• Out of 29 clark medal winners only 11 have got a nobel so far...(38% conversion rate... pretty impressive)
• Clark started in 1947 and Nobel in 1969....so a gap of 22 years... the fact is that till 1969 Clarkies had already produced 7 future nobel winners!!!
• Infact in that gap of 22 years, there were 10 clarkies (none was awarded in 1953) and seven went on to win a nobel !!! 70% success ratio
• Post 1967, the number of clarkies winnining a nobel has been just 4 out of a total of 19 winners a ratio of just 21%
• Out of 58 winners so far, 42 were associated with US Univs at the time Nobel was awarded....72.4%!!So to say Nobel is panglobal is not really working.. well what can nobel committee do... all top guys and thinkers seem to be in US...
• It shows nothing but their productive Univs 9 from Uchicago, 4 from UCB, 4 Harvard, 4 columbia, 3 Cambridge (last in 1995)
• Average & mode age -67, median age-66
• It takes roughly 22 years of waiting between clark and nobel
  Arrow took the least time between clark and nobel (15) and Tobin and Solow 26...
  Arrow is the youngest (but obvious) to have won a nobel (just 51) .. he still holds the recors... and nobel committee is widely cricticised for giving him a nobel alongwith Hicks... he deserved it all alone...!!!!
• Merton 2nd youngest at 53, His mentor Samuelson at 55, Scholes at 55...One can imagine the impact Black Scholes Merton model had on fin markets....
• 3 guys in 80's gto the Nobel- Schelling (game theory) , Wickfrey (famous for his work on auctions), and Coase (never calls himself an economist.. but what impact...)
• all fin eco guys were either 66 or below (Both Modgillani and Miller were 67...the oldest of the lot.. funny the guys who contributed the most recognised at last)
• And plotting the ages gives a somewhat normal disitribution.....!!!!

Here is the full list of Clark Medal Winners who got the nobel as well. The year ahead of name is Year when Clark is given. If the nobel is given, the year is followed after the name..

1947 Paul A. Samuelson 1970
1949 Kenneth E. Boulding
1951 Milton Friedman 1976
1955 James Tobin 1981
1957 Kenneth J. Arrow 1972
1959 Lawrence R. Klein 1980
1961 Robert M. Solow 1987
1963 Hendrik S. Houthakker
1965 Zvi Griliches
1967 Gary S. Becker 1992
1969 Marc Leon Nerlove
1971 Dale W. Jorgenson
1973 Franklin M. Fisher
1975 Daniel McFadden 2000
1977 Martin S. Feldstein
1979 Joseph E. Stiglitz 2001
1981 A. Michael Spence 2001
1983 James J. Heckman 2000
1985 Jerry A. Hausman
1987 Sanford J. Grossman
1989 David M. Kreps
1991 Paul R. Krugman
1993 Lawrence H. Summers
1995 David Card
1997 Kevin M. Murphy
1999 Andrei Shleifer
2001 Matthew Rabin
2003 Steven Levitt
2005 Daron Acemoglu
2007 Susan Athey

Clark Medal for 2007 goes to Susan Athey

The John Bates Clark Medal ( given to most promising American Economist under 40; read more about the medal here; read about John Bates Clark here) for 2007 (is given every alternate year) goes to Susan Athey.

Susan Athey is a very popular economist and teaches at Harvard. Her webpage is here and summary of her work is here. She is the first woman to have won the award.

To be honest I do not recall reading any work by her and her name adds one more to the ever growing reading list.