Oleg Itskhoki, NES graduate (MAE’2004), professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, won the John Bates Clark Medal, second most important award in economics after the Nobel Prize.
One of the most prestigious and eagerly anticipated AEA awards, the John Bates Clark Medal is awarded annually each April (formerly biennially from 1947-2009) to that American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. In the past the Clark Medal has been awarded to Zvi Griliches, one of the founders of the New Economic School, as well as to Nobel Prize winners Paul Krugman, David Card, Esther Duflo.
The American Economic Association website notes that Oleg Itskhoki has made fundamental contributions to both international finance and international trade. His most important contributions to international finance are his papers on general-equilibrium exchange-rate puzzles and exchange-rate pass-through. “Exchange Rate Disconnect in General Equilibrium” (Journal of Political Economy 2021) and the follow-up paper “Mussa Puzzle Redux”, both co-authored with another NES graduate, the London School of Economics professor Dmitry Mukhin, are likely to be considered Itskhoki’s landmark contributions to international finance.