Warsh on JBC 2005 winner Daron Acemoglu

Three weeks ago Acemoglu was named winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the American economist under 40 judged to have made the greatest contribution to economics. David Warsh offers a nice discussion of his work, in a user friendly (non-economist) sort of way. Link

Excerpt:

The committee that gave the 38-year-old Acemoglu the Clark medal last week described him as "extremely broad and productive," noting that in the course of a dozen years he had made significant contributions to the study of labor markets before moving on to "especially innovative" ideas about the role of institutions in development and political economy.

Extremely productive, indeed. But it is the quality of his production that is amazing. As a proxy on quality, check out this list of his publications and note (not just the volume) but the Journals where his work appears. For the uninitiated, simply count the number that appear in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Three or four in this journal over a career is impressive.