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John Bates Clark Medal!


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i think results will come out tomorrow (otherwise, if it's after the 22nd, it seems as if it's end of april, which is too late and sets a norm for procrastination)

 

i don't think bajari will make it, for two reasons:

 

1) athey's stuff was too close to his... (she won in 2007)

 

2) his last name sound indian, and they'd rather pick chetty or mullainathan before they pick a someone who only sounds indian

 

instead, i think it's time for development, public or econometrics. (a macro guy would be too "timely" and fashionable... )

 

predictions: duflo, mullainathan, chetty (too young) or saez.

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1) athey's stuff was too close to his... (she won in 2007)

I expect the Clark medal to exhibit less cycling through fields than the Nobel, because the age constraint influences voting. The Nobel committee can cycle through fields and not worry about a candidate becoming ineligible in later years (barring a candidate on the verge of death).

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M. and B. are good guesses, but Chetty is way too young (only 30, right?).

 

Many other good guesses are just barely too old (Glaeser, List, etc). Maybe Duflo, but I think M. would get it instead (less controversial, yet works on some of the same topics) unless it's D's last year of eigibility. My guesses are M. and, if M. will still be eligible next year, Bajari might get it. Still think Duflo is too controversial re: randomization.

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I'm curious, is Duflo brilliant or does she just manage to apply sophisticated techniques really well?

 

I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to answer that (though I would guess yes), but regardless, she has spearheaded the most prominent movement in development econ these days, so she's gotta get some love for that.

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I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to answer that (though I would guess yes), but regardless, she has spearheaded the most prominent movement in development econ these days, so she's gotta get some love for that.

 

Two key factors. Program/policy evaluation is easy with randomization (you gain a lot), so it's not so difficult (simple difference-in-difference, eg.). Also the "prominent movement in development econ" in INCREDIBLY controversial, so that makes it even more difficult for her to win.

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Two key factors. Program/policy evaluation is easy with randomization (you gain a lot), so it's not so difficult (simple difference-in-difference, eg.). Also the "prominent movement in development econ" in INCREDIBLY controversial, so that makes it even more difficult for her to win.

 

I'd rather not get into a debate on methods because I'll only embarrass myself, but I had no clue randomization was so controversial. I can understand from an ethical perspective how it can be seen that way (experimenting on people, leaving others alone as control groups..) but within the profession? I guess I could just be out of the loop... I don't know any development people, I just know what I read online and hear on this forum. So do other economists see results from randomization as unreliable? Do they think it lacks creativity? It just seems unusual that they could get their papers consistently published in legit journals if it's so controversial.

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I completely agree with what GR wrote.

 

I'd rather not get into a debate on methods because I'll only embarrass myself, but I had no clue randomization was so controversial. I can understand from an ethical perspective how it can be seen that way (experimenting on people, leaving others alone as control groups..) but within the profession? I guess I could just be out of the loop... I don't know any development people, I just know what I read online and hear on this forum. So do other economists see results from randomization as unreliable? Do they think it lacks creativity? It just seems unusual that they could get their papers consistently published in legit journals if it's so controversial.

Here you have one side of the debate and here is the other (also Heckman has a nice paper about this issue).

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Here you have one side of the debate and here is the other (also Heckman has a nice paper about this issue).

 

Thanks for the links bscout! I've read through most of Deaton's before, but hadn't seen Imbens' response. If anyone else wants to read the Deaton paper, here is one you don't have to pay five dollars to read.

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Also the "prominent movement in development econ" in INCREDIBLY controversial, so that makes it even more difficult for her to win.

 

I'm sorry, but this is just untrue. There is huge consensus between economists under the age of 50 on the value of randomization in field experiments. There are very few skeptics (Heckman and Deaton are prominent amongst them), and many of their criticisms apply only to the very early work in field experiments, when people were still figuring this stuff out. Carefully designed field experiments are powerful tools to distinguish between models, and need not be atheoretical. c.f. some of List's stuff, or recent Duflo stuff on hyperbolic discounting, or Mullainathan's ongoing work on wage incentives and commitment devices.

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I dont think so. See David Card!!

He is not American,but he is Canadian.

Thanks to this, I was looking up the John Bates Clark Medal on Wikipedia and saw

The award was made biennially until 2007, but is being awarded every year from 2009 because many deserving went unawarded. The committee cited economists such as Edward Glaeser and John A. List in campaigning that the award should be annual.
Seeing John List's name, I clicked on it and was greeted by this:

This page is about the economist John A. List, not the mass murderer John List.

:3
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Random observation for jeeves: Now that I've cracked the mystery of your identity, you think you're up for becoming the reason for the first ever occurence of three people with the same surname, but unrelated otherwise, becoming famous in economics? The other two already are, it's up to you.
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Random observation for jeeves: Now that I've cracked the mystery of your identity, you think you're up for becoming the reason for the first ever occurence of three people with the same surname, but unrelated otherwise, becoming famous in economics? The other two already are, it's up to you.

 

Why do you count only two famous economists with that surname??

 

I really think there are at least three (or even four)...

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