The American Economic Association has awarded Chicago Booth’s Matthew Gentzkow the 2014 John Bates Clark Medal. The prestigious Clark Medal is awarded annually to the “American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.”
In awarding this prestigious prize to Professor Gentzkow, the AEA noted that he:
has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the economic forces driving the creation of media products, the changing nature and role of media in the digital environment, and the effect of media on education and civic engagement. He has thus emerged as a leader in a new generation of microeconomists applying economic methods to analyze questions that were historically analyzed by non-economists. His empirical work combines novel data, innovative identification strategies and careful empirical methods to answer questions at the interface of economics, political science, and sociology….
In summary, Gentzkow is a productive young economist who applies frontier methods in empirics and theory to an important set of questions. His skills span the full range of the discipline. He has been a pioneer in the area of media economics, defining questions appropriate to the changing media landscape. His work is creative without sacrificing quality. He has established himself as a role model in both substance and execution.
Matthew Gentzkow is the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow; he is a director of Chicago Booth’s Initiative on Global Markets.
Several papers that Professor Gentzkow and coauthors published for the IGM’s working paper series were cited by the AEA in awarding him the Clark Medal. Links to these papers are available below:
Ideological Segregation Online and Offline
Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers
The AEA’s full announcement of its 2014 Clark Medal award, and a summary of Professor Gentzkow’s contributions, can be found here.
