MIT economist wins John Bates Clark medal

The American Economic Association on Friday picked Esther Duflo, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as the winner of its prestigious John Bates Clark medal, which is awarded to the top economist under 40.

Ms Duflo, 37, specialises in development economics and is the second woman to be awarded the medal, which has been given out every two years since 1947. The award is given to the most promising young economist who is “judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”, according to the AEA.

The medal is for US economists or foreigners who are based at US universities. Of those who have been selected, 40 per cent have gone on to win a Nobel Prize.

A French national, Ms Duflo has written on subjects ranging from immunisation coverage in rural India to rates of return on fertiliser in Kenya. Her work often focuses on gender issues.

In one set of studies, Ms Duflo and her colleagues examined Indian villages that are required to choose a woman as council head to determine the impact of female political leadership on government spending. Investment in clean drinking water tended to usurp education spending in villages with woman leaders .

Another case looked at South Africa’s pension system in the 1990s, when benefits were increased for elderly blacks. Ms Duflo found that when families with old black women received more pension money, the girls in their households saw increases in body mass index. Families with old black men were no better fed.

Previous Clark medal winners include Lawrence Summers, Joseph Stiglitz, Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Ms Duflo has collaborated in the past with last year’s winner, Emmanuel Saez, of University of California, Berkeley.

Ms Duflo earned her PhD at MIT in1999 and became an assistant professor in 2001. Two years later she founded the university’s Poverty Action Lab, which uses randomised field experiments to look for medical and education programmes to fight poverty.

From this year on, the Clark medal will be given annually. Some have argued that making the award less scarce could detract from its lustre.