This Indian from MIT won most promising economist award
What's the story
Parag Pathak, a professor of Economics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has won the prestigious John Bates Clark award for academic contributions from a young economist. Pathak, 37, was honored for his work on market design and education policy. Interestingly, winners of the John Bates Clark award stand a one-in-three chance of winning the Nobel Prize in economics. Here's more.
Personal
Parag Pathak's educational qualifications
Pathak received his BA summa cum laude in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 2002, and an MS in the subject the same year. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard in 2007, working with professor Alvin Roth, with whom Pathak has co-authored papers.
Pathak's contribution
Pathak's contribution to academia
Pathak's studies in Boston provided evidence that urban charter schools boosted educational attainment, and thus raised questions of accessibility to such schools. His study, which "blends institutional knowledge, theoretical sophistication, and careful empirical analysis", added to "growing body of evidence suggesting that urban charter schools have the potential to generate impressive achievement gains, especially for minority students living in high-poverty areas".
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Notable past winners of the John Bates Clark Award
Past winners of the John Bates Clark award include the late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman; New York Times columnist and City University of New York professor Paul Krugman; and Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary and ex-director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council.