A well-deserved award: Duflo for JBC

Esther Duflo won a highly deserved John Bates Clark Medal today. Awarded to outstanding economists under the age of 40, many of them have gone on to win the Nobel. Duflo's work on randomized controlled trials has spawned a major movement within economics to greater use of RCTs - the gold standard everywhere else but deemed impractical for many economic questions. Her Poverty Action Lab has generated a lot of important research. One of her working papers on the behavioral economics of fertilizer applications is included in our upcoming book on global food policy. As another development economist, I feel gratified as well:

"What this recognizes is the fact that development is an exciting field, and that is not only my work, it is the work of many people," said Ms. Duflo, who was rock climbing with friends on New York's Shawangunk Ridge when she found out she had won the Clark.