2020 Honors Graduates

The Department of Economics is pleased to announce the following Honors graduates. These graduates have distinguished themselves academically and have demonstrated a desire to further their intellectual dialogue through original research in the field of Economics.

Message from Director of Honors Program

Dr. Stephen O'Connell

Justin Cohen

Graduating with High Honors (magna cum laude)

Committee: Sue Mialon, Robert Roth, Jr. (Mathematics), Alexander Bolton (Political Science)

Title of Thesis: Greek Radical Party Emergence Following Its Economic Crisis

Max Krauskopf

Graduating with Highest Honors (summa cum laude)

Committee: Blake Allison, Kelli Lanier, Jeffrey Morrison (Political Science)

Title of Thesis: Trial by Ordeal: A Model of Trial Choices and Policy Restrictions

Michael Leeder

Graduating with High Honors (magna cum laude)

Committee: Evan Saltzman, Kelli Lanier, Cassandra Casias (Classics)

Title of Thesis: Valuing MLB Pitchers with Respect to Mechanic Predisposition to Injury

Jian H. Li

Graduating with Honors (cum laude)

Committee: Ian McCarthy, Kelli Lanier, David Civitello (Biology)

Title of Thesis: The Effect of Leveraged Buyouts on Acute Care Hospital Patient Mortality

Olivia Lofton

Graduating with Highest Honors (summa cum laude)

Committee: Krzysztof Karbownik, Kyungmin (Teddy) Kim, Michael Carr (Mathematics)

Title of Thesis: Kinship Guardianship: Understanding the Changing Incentives of TANF-recipient Families under Sanctions

Raya Machaca

Graduating with High Honors (magna cum laude)

Committee: Paloma Moyano, Stephen O'Connell, Rkia Cornell (Arabic/Middle Eastern Studies)

Title of Thesis: The Guber Grapple: Assessing the Relationship between Newspaper Coverage, Incumbency, and Gender in Gubernatorial Elections

Andrew Teodorescu

Graduating with Highest Honors (summa cum laude )

Committee: Jeong Ho (John) Kim, Caroline Fohlin, Bree Ettinger (Mathematics)

Title of Thesis: Does Mutual Fund Style Category Composition Explain the Benefits of Family Diversification?

Christina Ye

Graduating with High Honors (magna cum laude)

Committee: Kaiji Chen, Sheila T. Cavanagh (English), Victoria Powers (Mathematics)

Title of Thesis: The Relationship Between Big4 Bank Lending Shares and Peer-to-peer Loan Applications across Different Regions and the Changes in the Percentage of Low Credit Borrowers in the Context of Regulatory Changes

Miaomiao Zhang

Graduating with Highest Honors (summa cum laude)

Committee: Stephen O'Connell, Shomu Banerjee, Seunghwa Rho (QTM)

Title os Thesis: Algorithmic Targeting of Social Welfare Programs: Machine Learning for Prediction Model Design and Causal Effects Estimation

Sichen Zhu

Graduating with Highest Honors (summa cum laude)

Committee: Zhanwei (Vivian) Yue, Tao Zha, Yifeng Zhu, Davide Fossati (CS), Le Chen (Mathematics)

Title of Thesis: Stock Price Comovement and Location Effect