Yes, sorry, I was thinking of those shortly before the mid-1970s, not including the very early winners who are (ex Boulding, if you like) of a different class. (Nor was I suggesting that there were any real weak links anywhere). 
The top part of this list looks weaker to me, in terms of later achievement, than the bottom part (without being too fussy about exactly where the middle is), and those in the bottom part are obviously better placed to produce still more:

1963 Hendrik S. Houthakker
1965 Zvi Griliches
1967 Gary S. Becker
1969 Marc Leon Nerlove
1971 Dale W. Jorgenson
1973 Franklin M. Fisher
1975 Daniel McFadden
1977 Martin S. Feldstein
1979 Joseph E. Stiglitz
1981 A. Michael Spence
1983 James J. Heckman
1985 Jerry A. Hausman
1987 Sanford J. Grossman
1989 David M. Kreps
1991 Paul R. Krugman
1993 Lawrence H. Summers
1995 David Card

But if people disagree, that is fine with me 😄 

Judging the matter by who wins a Nobel Prize is one way, although one must remember that Nobel Prizes are pretty commonplace by the standards of the Clark Medal (74 Nobels, I believe, as against 26 Clark medals since 1969 and 36 in all).

I suppose there was no award in 1953 because no one was thought worthy (does anyone know?) but in a way that makes the puzzle over apparently-weak candidates greater. If ‘no award’ is an acceptable option, then merely being the best of the bunch is not sufficient to win it, and the question ‘who else was better?’ loses a bit of its force. That question is also a hard one since one has to think about who was under 40 at various dates, and some of the possibilities may later have disappeared from view completely. By the time Friedman won the Medal I would guess the work thought most impressive would be the Friedman-Savage piece on utility theory (JPE 1948), the Marshallian demand curve, even though it provoked a lot of criticism, (JPE 1949), and probably the one on monetary and fiscal policy (AER 1948). That is quite a good list, I think, but as I said, my question about Friedman was not in relation to the Medal, but to early assessments of him generally. (And my answer was that they were based on more than publications). If one asks the ‘who was better?’ question about Boulding, then perhaps the answer that springs to some minds is ‘Friedman’. But would any of those three items have come to attention by the time the decision was made to give the Medal to Boulding? I don’t know, but maybe not, I would have thought. If not, I don’t think there is much in terms of publications that would put Friedman ahead of Boulding before those three items.

best wishes

James

James Forder
Fellow and Tutor in Political Economy
Balliol College Oxford

In response to James Forder's suggestion that "...the recipients after the mid-1970s have a higher propensity to become really notable economists than did those before that time."
Here's the list of recipients from the beginning until 1973:

1947 Paul A. Samuelson
1949 Kenneth E. Boulding
1951 Milton Friedman
1953 No Award
1955 James Tobin
1957 Kenneth J. Arrow
1959 Lawrence R. Klein
1961 Robert M. Solow
1963 Hendrik S. Houthakker
1965 Zvi Griliches
1967 Gary S. Becker
1969 Marc Leon Nerlove
1971 Dale W. Jorgenson
1973 Franklin M. Fisher
I'm not sure how that list supports Dr. Forder's suggestion.  (Except maybe for the 1953 award.)
 
 
Don Coffin


On 28 Jul 2014, at 04:04, Robert Leeson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> In 1951, who else was a stronger candidate? No one was perceived as being sufficiently worthy in 1953. 
> 
> Friedman's (1948) AER 'A monetary and fiscal framework for economic stability' (with counter-cyclical monetary policy) remains one of his most insightful pieces. Beginning in 1951, he replaced it with the k-percent money growth rule because he was unable to fully engage the profession with a balanced budget proposal (the Keynesian influence?).
> 
> With the exception of Boulding, all the early winners (1947-1961) later won Nobel Prizes   
> 
> 1947 Samuelson  
> 1949 Boulding 
> 1951 Friedman 
> 1953 No Award 
> 1955 Tobin 
> 1957 Arrow  
> 1959 Klein 
> 1961 Solow 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Forder" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2014 5:54:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Kenneth Boulding and the 1949 Clark Medal
> 
> I have sometimes wondered about Friedman in that kind of way too (not particularly in relation to the Bates medal). Before ‘A theory of the consumption function’ (1957) I am not sure that his publications alone really support some of the remarks one can read from that time about how clever he was. Isn’t the answer that in those days, assessments based on personal interactions, comments, private correspondence, discussions at conferences and the like had much more weight than now, as compared to publications? As it turned out, Friedman and Tobin produced more than Boulding, but I am not sure they would have seemed cleverer than him to those who knew them in the ‘40s. It is our publications-based view that tells the misleading story, perhaps?
> 
> Here’s a suggestion that might raise controversy: Looking at the list at http://www.aeaweb.org/honors_awards/clark_medal.php and ignoring the recent awards (since it is too soon to say), the recipients after the mid-1970s have a higher propensity to become really notable economists than did those before that time. I hypothesise that this is because as time went on the award of the medal was increasingly based on publications rather than other assessments, and those who publish much before they are 40 carry on doing so afterwards.
> 
> best wishes
> 
> James
> 
> 
> James Forder
> Fellow and Tutor in Political Economy
> Balliol College Oxford
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 26 Jul 2014, at 22:42, David Mitch <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> In 1949, Kenneth Boulding was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for best economist under the age of 40. He was the second person to get this award, after Paul Samuelson in 1947.  Could anyone explain why Boulding would have been chosen for this award?   It is not evident to me at least that his contributions or potential circa 1949 would have put him in the same league as other early Clark winners including Samuelson, Friedman, and Tobin.  In posing this query, I intend no disrespect for either Boulding, who I think had a quite fascinating and worthwhile career, or the Clark Medal.  I would just like to try to understand why Boulding might have been chosen for this award in 1949.  
>> 
>> By the way, I have looked at Philippe Fontaine's 2010 article on Boulding in _Science in Context_. I think it is an excellent article. But it doesn't address directly the question of why Boulding might have gotten the Clark Medal. 
>> 
>> A related query is what were the institutional arrangements for selecting the Clark Medal winner in the late 1940s.  Presumably there was a selection committee.  Who was on this committee? 
>> Would John Maurice Clark, JB Clark's son have been involved in the selection process?  Was there some pot of money involved in funding this award?  If so, where did the money come from? 
>> 
>> David Mitch
>> 
>> -- 
>> David Mitch
>> Professor of Economics
>> Graduate Program Director
>> Economic Policy Analysis
>> Affiliate Professor, Asian Studies
>> University of Maryland, Baltimore County
>> email: [log in to unmask]