 numerous awards for his work, including the John Bates Clark Medal, which he won in 2005. His specific areas of economic expertise are development economics, economic growth, political economy, technology, human capital and training, income and wage inequality, and labor economics.
Acemoğlu’s best-known paper is Colonial Origins of Comparative Development, which he co-wrote with Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. Published in 2001, the paper is considered a pivotal contribution to the field of development economics.
The economist’s most prestigious award to date is the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize, which he won in 2012 for “fundamental contributions to the understanding of political institutions, technical change, and economic growth.” Half of the recipients of this award have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, so maybe he’s in with a chance.
6. Susan C. Athey
In 2007, Susan Athey became the first female economist to win the coveted John Bates Clark Medal. In terms of academic background, before she became Professor of Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Athey was a professor at Harvard. She is also the current Chief Economist for Microsoft.
Athey’s most notable contributions to the field of economics have been introducing a new way to model uncertainty and making sense of investor behavior in the face of uncertainty. She has also discovered ways of detecting and preventing collusion in auctions, which led to the introduction of sealed bids to ensure that bidders cannot share information.
In addition to her theoretical work, Athey has also co-edited several major journals, including American Economic Journals: Microeconomics and the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Athey has also served as an associate editor on prestigious titles like American Economic Review and the RAND Journal of Economics, and she currently holds the same position on Econometrica, Theoretical Economics and Quarterly Journal of Economics. Now that’s what you call keeping busy. Maybe they should hand her a certain award.
5. Hernando de Soto Polar
During his prestigious career, Hernando de Soto Polar has contributed significantly to economic and political change in his native country of Peru. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, he and his think tank, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (IDL), were responsible for numerous reforms of the Peruvian economic and property systems. These included allowing previously black market groups to enter the legitimate economy.
De Soto’s work gained the attention of Maoist Peruvian terrorist group The Shining Path when he granted titles to smaller coca farmers, allegedly depriving the guerrillas of supplies, money, and recruits. The group’s leader, Abimael Guzmán, saw the IDL as a threat, and de Soto was added to their hit list. In July 1992, a car bomb exploded inside the ILD headquarters in Lima. Three people were killed and 19 were injured in the attack.
In May 1999, de Soto was selected by Time as one of their top five Latin American innovators of the century. And in 2004, the magazine included him on their 100 Most Influential People in the World list. United States presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan have also praised de Soto’s work.
4. Jagdish Bhagwati
Jagdish Bhagwati is a highly decorated Indian-American economist and a current professor of economics and law at Columbia University. During his illustrious career, Bhagwati has served as an external adviser to the Director General of the World Trade Organization and as a special policy advisor on globalization to the UN. He has also worked as an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology.
Bhagwati’s most famous work has been in the field of liberalization, and he is credited with helping to significantly liberalize global trade. His work advising the Indian government was instrumental in ending their socialist policies and creating a genuinely free market in the country.
Bhagwati was one of the economists tipped to win the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, although, in a somewhat controversial res