News Archive

		Paul Joskow wins the 2009 USAEE Award Paul Joskow has been presented with the 2009 USAEE Adelman-Frankel Award, by the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE), for unique and innovating contributions to the field of energy economics.
		Brandon Lehr awarded the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award The first annual James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for Excellence in teaching has been awarded to Ph.D. student in Economics Brandon Lehr.
		Esther Duflo wins the Calvó-Armengol International Prize The Calvó-Armengol International Prize, promoted by the Barcelona GSE, the Government of Andorra, and the Crèdit Andorrà Bank Foundation, has been awarded to Professor Esther Duflo.
		MIT alumnus gives increased support to Poverty Action Lab MIT has announced that alumnus Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel has committed a substantial gift to support the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in its mission to reduce poverty worldwide by ensuring that policy is based on scientific evidence.
		David Autor elected Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists By the honorary title of Fellow, the Society recognizes labor economists who have made contributions of unusual distinction to the field.
		Saez wins John Bates Clark medal Emmanuel Saez who earned his Ph.D. from MIT in 1999, has won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the nation's most promising economist under 40 by the American Economic Association. He will be a visiting Professor at MIT next year.
		Esther Duflo and Robert Gibbons named to AAAS Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, and Robert Gibbons, the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Organizational Economics and Strategy, MIT Sloan School of Management, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
		Peter Diamond has been appointed to a Special Commission He is now one of the newest members of the Special Commission to Study the Massachusetts Contributory Retirement Systems.
		Harrison Hong, MIT, Ph.D., 1997 Economics, has won the Fischer Black Prize The price is awarded biennially by the American Finance Association. It is awarded for a body of work that best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance practice.
		Jean Tirole Receives BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award He was awarded for the research in the area of economics, management and finance.
		J-PAL Receives BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award The Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory has been awarded a 2009 "Frontiers of Knowledge" Award in the area of "development cooperation" by BBVA Foundation, an affiliate of a large Spanish bank.
		Ricardo Caballero has won the Smith Breeden First Prize First place is awarded to the best paper published in the Journal of Finance during 2008 (joint work with Arvind Krishnamurthy)
		Bengt Holmström has been elected Second Vice-President of the Econometric Society Bengt Holmström has been elected Second Vice President, and will be the First Vice President in 2010, and President in 2011 of the Econometric Society.
		Amy Finkelstein of MIT and NBER has won the CSWEP 2008 Elaine Bennett Research Prize Amy Finkelstein of MIT and NBER has won the CSWEP 2008 Elaine Bennett Research Prize. This prize will be given to her at the annual business meeting of the American Economics Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) on Saturday, January 3, 2009, from 5:00-6:00 pm in the Golden Gate 4 Room of the Hilton San Francisco Hotel.
		Amy Finkelstein and Jeffrey Brown are the 2008 winners of the TIAA-CREF/Paul Samuelson Award MIT faculty member Amy Finkelstein (Ph.D. 2001) and Jeffrey Brown (Ph.D. 1999), the William G. Karnes Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois, are the 2008 winners of the TIAA-CREF/Paul Samuelson Award for contributions to Lifetime Financial Security.
		President -elect Barack Obama selects economists President-elect Barack Obama has selected Lawrence Summers (SB 1975) to head the National Economic Council, Christina Romer (Ph.D. 1985) as Chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Austan Goolsbee (Ph.D. 1995) As a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. Summers, who served in the Treasury Department for eight years in the Clinton administration and was Secretary of the Treasury between 1999 and 2001, is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. Romer is the Class of 1957-Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California-Berkeley. Goolsbee is the Robert Gwinn Professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
		Robert Hall Named President of American Economic Association Robert Hall (Ph.D. '67) is the President-Elect of the American Economic Association for 2009. James Poterba is one of the Association's two Vice-Presidents, and Daron Acemoglu is a newly-elected member of the Executive Committee.
		Paul Krugman Wins Nobel Prize This year's Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Paul Krugman, MIT Ph.D'77 and a member of our faculty for close to two decades.
		James Poterba is President of the NBER James Poterba became President of the National Bureau of Economic Research on July 1, 2008, and remains on the MIT Economics faculty in a reduced-time position.
		Jonathan Gruber Elected to Academy of Arts and Sciences Jonathan Gruber has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among the new 2008 fellows, he is joined by MIT Economics graduates Roger Gordon, Jeremy Stein, and Michael Whinston.
		Olivier Blanchard Named Chief Economist of IMF Olivier Blanchard has been named the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund effective September 1, 2008. In this role he will develop and coordinate the IMF's advice regarding economic policy, and oversee the Research Department. Olivier will take leave from MIT for the duration of this appointment.
		Jeff Harris named Distinguished Guest of Salamanca Jeff Harris has been named a Distinguished Guest of the City of Salamanca, Spain, in recognition of his important collaborative activities with the Spanish Association for Health Economics.
		David Autor Named Editor of Journal of Economic Perspectives David Autor has been named the next editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, with a term to begin in January 2009.
		Jose de Gregorio Named President of the Central Bank of Chile Jose de Gregorio (Ph.D. '90) has been named the President of the Central Bank of Chile. He succeeds Vittorio Corbo (Ph.D. '71) in this role.
		Esther Duflo Named "Knowledge Against Poverty" Chair Esther Duflo has been named the inaugural holder of the "Knowledge Against Poverty" chair at the College de France.
		Juan Montero Named Economist of the Year Juan Pablo Montero (M.S. Economics '96, Ph.D. Sloan '97) has been named the Outstanding Economist of the Year in Chile. Ricardo Caballero was the inaugural winner of this prize (2001).