University of Chicago Department of Economics

Economics Program Awards

A List of Awards and their Recent Recipients

The David S. Hu Awards in Economics

This award fund was established as a lasting memorial by Mr. and Mrs. Songzhou Hu for their son David S. Hu, a promising student of the class of 2011. This fund provides an annual opportunity to remember David S. Hu, known for his kindness, intellect, and enthusiasm for learning at the University of Chicago. This generous fund allows recognition of possibly multiple recipients of this award in any year, but all have shown excellence in their economics course work and creativity in writing their senior theses.

Class of 2011

Yiwei Chen, “Optimal Timing of DVD Releases”
Luca Maini, “Devolution and Convergence: the Role of Population Flows”
Kelsey Moser, “A Model of Production-Determined Debt Default in Iceland and Argentina”
Molly Schnell, “To Go or Not to Go: The College-Going Decision in a Sample of High-IQ Men”
Karen Ye, “Spite and Altruism in Second Price Auctions: An Experiment”

The Goldberg Award in Economics

This award fund was created by a bequest by Lawrence “Larry” Goldberg, Ph.D. 1972 (Economics). Recipients are students who have created excellent original research in writing their honors theses. The award is intended to encourage students to pursue their academic interests and to make important contributions to knowledge in their chosen fields.

Class of 2010

Jorgen Harris, “Complications in the Congestion Tax Literature: The Effect of Value of Time Clustering on Cordon Tax Efficiency”
Malika Krishna, “Hospitals and Ambulatory Surgery Centers: The Effects of Outpatient Competition”
Waldo Ojeda, “An Analysis of Race and Subprime Borrowers During the Mortgage Credit Expansion”
Daniel Waldinger, “Are Newton Parents Tiebout Agents? The Effect of a Partly Unanticipated Property Tax Increase on Home Prices”

Class of 2009

Ross Doppelt, “Human Capital, Endogenous Growth, Business Cycles: A Quantitative Analysis”
Andrew Hogue, “Is Amazing Customer Service Profit Maximizing?”
John Eric Humphries, “Economic Conditions and GED Test Taking heterogeneous age groups and the roll of the GED test)”
Zhiwei Calvin Lin, “Overbidding in IPV Auctions is not a Rational Best Response”
Sibo Lu, “The Effect of Income Correlation on the Efficiency of Group Lending and The Case for Micro-Insurance”
Chris Milroy, “Crisis and Conflict”
Jeffrey Picel, “Optimal Bin Placement for Charities”
Eric Robertson, “The Alpha Dogs of the Classroom: The Effects of Quarter of Birth”
Tong Kai (Fabian) Tan, “The Valuation of Parks in Chicago using Hedonic Pricing Analysis”

Class of 2008

Sonia Jaffe, “Iterative Thinking by Facebook Users”

Class of 2007

Kristopher Hult, “A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction by Industry and Brand”

D. Gale Johnson Memorial Award

The D. Gale Johnson Memorial Award was given in honor of D. Gale Johnson who served the University of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 2003. Former Dean of Social Sciences, Provost of the University, and Chairman of the Department of Economics, D. Gale Johnson also served as director of the Undergraduate Economics program through the decade of the 1990’s. This award was given to honors students who wrote exemplary honors theses, and consists of departmental recognition and a monetary prize.

Class of 2006

Nicholas Buchholz, “Spatial Search: An Analysis of the Market for Taxicab Rides”
Ronald Chan, “IPO lockup expiration, Insider Trading and the Effects of Investor Decisions”
Stanislav Rabinovich, “Efficiency in Search and Matching Models with Investment”

Class of 2005

Paul Ma, “Rate on Child Spacing: The Case of South Korea”

National Science Foundation