Atack has won five research grants from the National Science Foundation and received the Clio Can award from the Cliometric Society in recognition of his work in cliometrics.
Selected publications
Estimation of Economies of Scale in Nineteenth Century United States Manufacturing, New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985, pp.246.
To Their Own Soil: American Agriculture in the Antebellum North, Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1987, pp.327 (with Fred Bateman). Republished 2002.
A New Economic View of American History. NY: W.W. Norton, 1994, 2nd edition, pp 714 (with Peter Passell)