The National Tax Association gave this year’s Dan Holland Medal for outstanding contributions to the study and practice of public finance to MIT professor Jim Poterba. Jim, who is also president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is a terrific economist and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. To learn more about Jim, take a look at this video, produced by Rosanne Altshuler and Jim Hines Three insights from Jim’s award:

• He has mentored an astonishing number of world class economists.
• His kids talk almost as fast as he does.
• Altshuler and Hines ought to consider getting into the video business if this economics thing doesn’t work out for them.