Defining Excellence: 70 Years of John Bates Clark Medals

In 2017 the John Bates Clark Award turned 70, and the 39th medal was be awarded. Often dubbed the “baby Nobel Prize,” widely discussed by economists and covered in the press, it has become a professional and public marker of excellence for economic research. Yet, after three initial unanimous choices of laureates (Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Boulding, Milton Friedman), the award was increasingly challenged. The prize was not awarded in 1953, almost discontinued three times, the selection procedure and the age limit also created issues. We show how economists in these years disagreed over the definition of merit and excellence. Many young economists felt the prize was biased toward theory and asked for the establishment of a separate “Wesley Clair Mitchell award” for empirical and policy-oriented work. We examine how the committee on honors and awards reacted to critique on the lack of diversity of laureates in origins, affiliations, fields and methods, and we provide a quantitative analysis of the evolving profile of laureates.