The John Bates Clark Medal, awarded each year by the American Economic Association to the most promising economist under the age of forty, is sometimes referred to as the "Baby Nobel," since 12 out of 34 previous winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. (In addition, it's worth keeping in mind that the John Bates Clark Medal has been around since 1947 but the first Nobel Prize in Economics wasn't awarded until 1969. That said, the John Bates Clark Medal was only awarded every other year before 2009.)

This year's winner of the John Bates Clark Medal is MIT's Amy Finkelstein, who specializes in the economics of health care. From the AEA:

Amy's research is focused on health insurance markets. Within this area, she has had three main interrelated lines of research: (a) Tests on the presence of asymmetric information in insurance markets; (b) Structural estimation and analysis of welfare implications of models with asymmetric information; (c) Effects of public intervention in health and long-­‐term care insurance markets.

In other words, Professor Finkelstein looks at the ramifications of the fact that individuals know more about their own health than insurers do when people choose whether or not to sign up for health insurance. she also investigates whether improving access to health care makes individuals healthier and happier. Can't really argue with the importance of that.

Most people who have studied economics know that the Prisoners' Dilemma is one of the classic problems in game theory. But what happens when the theory is put to the test?

Economists have found an unexpected lesson via a British game show that essentially replicates the Prisoners' Dilemma game in front of a viewing audience, with one minor difference- if one player chooses to defect, the other player doesn't get any money regardless of what he chooses to do. This detail has interesting implications, as you can see here.

What would you have done in this situation? Why did this strategy work? You can see a discussion of the outcome here.

There are a lot of economists out there in the Twitterverse, but it can sometimes be difficult to find and follow them in an organized way. Luckily, onlinecollege.org has put together a list of what they consider 50 Useful Twitter Feeds for Econ Students. The tweeters are organized into categories such as "Economists," "Entrepreneurship," and "Personal Finance," and they include accounts such as Freakonomics, The World Economic Forum, and The Economist.

Alternatively, you could just follow me, or, better yet, check out my check out my economics Twitter list.

Here are this week's new articles for you to check out:

• The Arguments Against Free Trade - Why do people argue against free trade? Are their arguments justified?
• Introduction to Natural Monopoly - What are natural monopolies? How, if at all, should they be regulated?

Enjoy!