So the John Bates Clark Award goes to Daron Acemoglu. Congratulations. There are only two more awards offered before I will turn 40, so I expect a phone call one day.

Okay, seriously. Mucking around in sports economics and the other areas of guerilla research I engage in will not merit a JBC award. It is interesting to see who wins and what they do with their skills afterwards. From today's Chronicle of Higher Education (reg req'd):

In a written statement, the association praised Mr. Acemoglu, 37, as a "broad and productive economist" who has made "valuable contributions" in the fields of labor economics, macroeconomics, institutional economics, and political economy. "Especially innovative," the statement says, is his recent work on the role of institutions in development and in political economy.

Mr. Acemoglu was one of the authors of a paper, "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," that appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2002. The authors argue that among countries colonized by European powers, those that were relatively rich in 1500 are now relatively poor because of colonial policies -- an argument against the notion that geography is destiny.

In a working paper published in March by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Mr. Acemoglu and other authors argue that there is no evidence that countries that increase their levels of education are likely to become more democratic.

Mr. Acemoglu is the editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Growth. He was a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science before he became a professor at MIT.

Eleven of the previous 29 winners of the medal have gone on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Previous winners include Paul Krugman, a Princeton University professor and columnist for The New York Times; Jerry A. Hausman, another professor at MIT; James J. Heckman, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-winner of the Nobel in 2000; and Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard University.