The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge."[1] The award is named after the American economist John Bates Clark (1847–1938).
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, it "is widely regarded as one of the field's most prestigious awards... second only to the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences."[2] Many of the recipients went on to receive the Nobel Prizes in their later careers, including the inaugural recipient Paul Samuelson. The award was made biennially until 2007, but from 2009 is now awarded every year because of the growth of the field.[3] Although the Clark medal is billed as a prize for American economists, it is sufficient that the candidates work in the US at the time of the award; US nationality is not necessary to be considered.[1]
| Year | Medalists[1] | Institution (at time of receipt) | Alma mater (PhD) | Nationality | Nobel Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Paul Samuelson | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Harvard University | United States | 1970 |
| 1949 | Kenneth E. Boulding | University of Michigan | University of Oxford | United States | |
| 1951 | Milton Friedman | University of Chicago | Columbia University | United States | 1976 |
| 1955 | James Tobin | Yale University | Harvard University | United States | 1981 |
| 1957 | Kenneth Arrow | Stanford University | Columbia University | United States | 1972 |
| 1959 | Lawrence Klein | University of Pennsylvania | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 1980 |
| 1961 | Robert Solow | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Harvard University | United States | 1987 |
| 1963 | Hendrik S. Houthakker | Harvard University | University of Amsterdam | Netherlands | |
| 1965 | Zvi Griliches | Harvard University | University of Chicago | Israel | |
| 1967 | Gary Becker | University of Chicago | University of Chicago | United States | 1992 |
| 1969 | Marc Nerlove | Yale University | Johns Hopkins University | United States | |
| 1971 | Dale W. Jorgenson | Harvard University | Harvard University | United States | |
| 1973 | Franklin M. Fisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Harvard University | United States | |
| 1975 | Daniel McFadden | University of California, Berkeley | University of Minnesota | United States | 2000 |
| 1977 | Martin Feldstein | Harvard University | University of Oxford | United States | |
| 1979 | Joseph Stiglitz | Princeton University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 2001 |
| 1981 | Michael Spence | Harvard University | Harvard University | United States | 2001 |
| 1983 | James Heckman | University of Chicago | Princeton University | United States | 2000 |
| 1985 | Jerry A. Hausman | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | University of Oxford | United States | |
| 1987 | Sanford J. Grossman | Princeton University | University of Chicago | United States | |
| 1989 | David M. Kreps | Stanford University | Stanford University | United States | |
| 1991 | Paul Krugman | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 2008 |
| 1993 | Lawrence Summers | World Bank | Harvard University | United States | |
| 1995 | David Card | University of California, Berkeley | Princeton University | Canada | 2021 |
| 1997 | Kevin M. Murphy | University of Chicago | University of Chicago | United States | |
| 1999 | Andrei Shleifer | Harvard University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2001 | Matthew Rabin | University of California, Berkeley | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2003 | Steven Levitt | University of Chicago | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2005 | Daron Acemoglu | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | London School of Economics | Turkey, United States | |
| 2007 | Susan Athey | Stanford University | Stanford University | United States | |
| 2009 | Emmanuel Saez | University of California, Berkeley | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | France | |
| 2010 | Esther Duflo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | France | 2019 |
| 2011 | Jonathan Levin | Stanford University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2012 | Amy Finkelstein | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2013 | Raj Chetty | Harvard University | Harvard University | United States | |
| 2014 | Matthew Gentzkow | University of Chicago | Harvard University | United States | |
| 2015 | Roland G. Fryer Jr. | Harvard University | Pennsylvania State University | United States | |
| 2016 | Yuliy Sannikov | Princeton University | Stanford University | Ukraine | |
| 2017 | Dave Donaldson[4] | Stanford University [5] | London School of Economics | Canada | |
| 2018 | Parag Pathak[6] | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Harvard University | United States[7] | |
| 2019 | Emi Nakamura[8] | University of California, Berkeley | Harvard University | United States and Canada | |
| 2020 | Melissa Dell[9] | Harvard University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2021 | Isaiah Andrews[10] | Harvard University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | |
| 2022 | Oleg Itskhoki[11] | University of California, Los Angeles | Harvard University | Russia and United States[12] | |
| 2023 | Gabriel Zucman[13][14] | Ecole normale supérieure, Paris and University of California, Berkeley | School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) | France | |
| 2024 | Philipp Strack[15] | Yale University | University of Bonn[16] | Germany |
