The NBER Reporter 2012 Number 2: News

NBER Research Associate Amy Finkelstein received the American Economics Association’s John Bates Clark Medal for 2012. This annual award recognizes the American economist under the age of 40 who has made the most substantial contribution to economic thought and knowledge. This year's prize highlights Finkelstein's research contributions on insurance markets, particularly her work on asymmetric information in the markets for health insurance, annuities, and long-term care insurance. It calls attention to her analysis of the welfare implications of insurance market imperfections, and to her investigations of how public policies affect insurance market outcomes.

Finkelstein is a Professor of Economics at MIT and one of the co-directors of the NBER's Public Economics Program. She is also a member of the Aging, Health Care, and Industrial Organization Programs. She received her B.A in government from Harvard University in 1995, an M. Phil. in Economics from Oxford University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2001. She was appointed a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER in 2001 and was promoted to Research Associate in 2007.

Other current NBER Research Associates who have received the Clark Medal include Daniel McFadden, Martin S. Feldstein, Joseph E. Stiglitz, James J. Heckman, Jerry A. Hausman, Sanford J. Grossman, Paul R. Krugman, Lawrence H. Summers, David Card, Kevin M. Murphy, Andrei Shleifer, Steven Levitt, Daron Acemoglu, Susan C. Athey, Emmanuel Saez, Esther Duflo, and Jonathan Levin. Gary Becker, who was an NBER affiliate from 1957 until 1979, also won the Clark Medal, as did the late Milton Friedman and Zvi Griliches, both of whom were NBER affiliates for substantial parts of their careers.