Undergraduate Student Awards

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 2023

  • Cedric Elkouh: “Survival of the Safest? Collapsing Union Safety Premiums and Rising Labor Market Concentration in United States Coal Mining” 
  • Jeremy Huang: “No Deals on Wheels: A Price-Dispersion Model of the Endowment Effect in the Used-Car Marketplace”
  • Jim Royal: “Money Getting Smarter: Financial Literacy and Wealth Inequality in a Heterogeneous Agent Model”
  • Bruce Wen: “Reserve Prices in Art Auctions”
  • Raymon Yue: “How do sustainability ratings affect firm ESG performance and disclosure?”
  • Zhi Zhang: “U.S. Monetary Shocks and International Downside Risks Spillover”
  • Yuerong Zhuang: “Unity is Vision: The Impact of Trade War on US-China Scientific Collaborations” 

Class of 2022

  • Aparna Jayashankar, “Unintended Consequences: How the Announcement of New Training Requirements for Illinois FFN Providers Affected Subsidized Rural and Urban Child Care Supply”
  • Russell Legate-Yang, “Don't Bid and Tell? Uncertain Competition in Texan Oil Lease Auctions”
  • Jan Morgan, “Landesbanken and Default: Why Public Banks are Prone to Risk?”
  • Becky Scurlock, “Valuing Connections to Corrupt Politicians: Evidence from Brazil”
  • Steven Shi “Are Foreign Language Skills Really Valuable on the Job Market? Observational and Experimental Evidence”
  • Andrew Wooders, “Discrimination in the Online Marketplace”
  • Calvin Zhang, “Persistence of Gibrat's Law in Economic Agglomeration”

Class of 2021

  • Terry II Culpepper “Total Eclipse of the Heart Attack: The Effect of Marriage on Healthcare Utilization”
  • Azize Engin “Asset Pricing with Habit Persistence and Garbage Consumption Proxy”
  • Roy McKenzie “Teacher Grading and Value-Added: Evidence from Chicago”
  • Aaron Schur “Quality and Bunching Effects of the New York City Mansion Tax”
  • Anand Shah : “Defusing the Political Arms Race: a Matching Market for Political Donations”
  • Charles Shi : “Optimal Lockdown and Information in a Heterogeneous SIRD Model”
  • Kaixin Wang “The Dynamic Impact of Wildfires on the California Housing Market”
  • Alexander Warmath “Searching for the Green Premium: A Study of the MDB Bond Market”
  • Samuel Zhao “A Task-Based Model of Human Capital Accumulation”

Class of 2019

  • Rohit Chandran “A Theory of Convergence to a General Equilibrium”
  • Thomas Yu “A Model of Countercyclical Macroprudential Policy”
  • Deniz Dutz “Analysis of Ordered Choice Models: Limitations of Existing Models and Proposing an Alternative Model”
  • Ruby Zhang “The Effects of Manufacturer Mergers on Retail Product Variety and Prices across the Supply Chain”
  • Ian Pitman “A Data-Adaptive Method of Selecting Optimal Caliper Widths for Propensity Score Matching"

Class of 2018

  • Lindsey Currier, "Labor Response to a Hurricane Shock: Evidence from Houston Uber Drivers"
  • Daniel Ehrlich, “Regional Variation in Payment Instrument Usage”
  • Raymond Han, “Voting Cultures: Network Effects and the Political Participation of Naturalized Citizens in U.S. Elections"
  • Gregory Sun, “When to Accept Pool: Characterizing the Driver’s Decision Problem at Uber”
  • Hannah Walter, “Cartels, Crackdowns, and Conflicts: Analyzing the Determinants of Violence in Rio de Janeiro”
  • Jenny Wang, “A Wrinkle in Time: Estimating Rider Responsiveness to Wait Times with Regression Discontinuity”
  • Oliver Xie, “Advanced Text Signals Capture Trends in Stochastic Volatility”

Class of 2017

  • David Abraham, "Time Discipline and Labor Cost: Increased Watch Availability and Southern Railroads, 1866-1886"
  • Tilbe Caglayan, "Neighborhood Crime and Appointment Attendance: Evidence from University of Chicago Medicine"
  • Jacob Dorn, "Should Retail Chains Coordinate Their Promotions? Supply and Demand Theory and Empirical Tests"
  • Alex Foster, "Credit Access Among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Urban Ghana"
  • Ken Jung, "School Vouchers and Competition in the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program"
  • Sylvia Klosin, "To Post, Or Not To Post: An Investigation of Posted Wage Information in Online Job Advertisements"
  • Anya Marchenko, "Discrimination in Airbnb: Do Minority Hosts Earn Less than White Hosts on the Platform?"
  • Robbie Minton,"Similarity and Judgement under Uncertainty"
  • Mary Vansuch, "The Effects of Mandatory and Free College Admissions Exams on College Enrollment and Completion"

Class of 2016

  • Michael Galperin, "Economic Shocks and Insurgent Strategy: Evidence from Pakistan"
  • Zhida (George) Gui, "The Effect of Unemployment on Grocery Shopping"
  • Abhi Gupta, "Household Heterogeneity and Home Prices"
  • Michelle Jiang, "Affirmative Action, Percent Plans, and Segregation's Impact on Minority Enrollment"
  • Querida Qiu, "Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect: Regulatory Impact on Dual-Listed Share Premiums"
  • Michael Sheldon, "Income Targeting and the Ridesharing Market"

Class of 2015

  • Daniele Caratelli, "Breaking the Eurozone: What are the Consequences?"
  • Zefeng Chen, "Growing Like China: The Role of Labor Heterogeneity"
  • Cody Cook, "Consumer Response to Sales Tax Holidays"
  • Chen Cui, "Asymmetric Information in Securities Class Action Lawsuits"
  • Scott Loring, "Non-Partisan Blanket Primaries and Political Polarization"

Class of 2014

  • Chris Denning, "Anti-Takeover Defense in the Market for Corporate Control"
  • Ezra Karger, "Measuring the White-Black Educational Attainment Gap"
  • Maya Lozinski, "Getting Doctors to do Their Paperwork: The Impact of a Physician Billing Incentive"
  • Scott Mendelssohn, "Nash Equilibrium in MLB Pitching Strategy"
  • Mattie Toma, "Choking at the Free Throw Line: Analyzing the Determinants of Performance Under Pressure"

Class of 2013

  • Jacob Berman, "The Maturity Structure of Treasury Debt: How Costly is Mismanagement?"
  • Erik James, "Considering the Relative Significance of Transit Trip Attributes on the Decisions of Chicago Commuters to Drive or Take Public Transit"
  • Patrick Donnelly Moran, "Evaluating the Impact of Piracy: A Structural PVAR Analysis of the Conflicting Effects of File Sharing"
  • Emmanuel Souganidis, "A Rigorous Multi-Modal Analysis of Climate-Economics"

 Class of 2012

  • Eliot Abrams, "Incremental Value of Market Information to an Accounting Ratios Based Bankruptcy Prediction Model Before, During and After The Great Recession"
  • Jonathan Libgober, "Optimal Linking Mechanisms"
  • Weiling Liu, "Science versus Tradition: A Study on the Health Effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine"
  • Samuel Moy, "Are the Slots Loaded Against Consumers? The Effects of Airport Slot Allocation On Consumer Welfare"
  • Nakita Raghunath, "The Impact of Microfinance on Female Bargaining Power in India" 

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 S. Joel Schur Family Economics Prize
Owing to the generosity of the family of Aaron Schur, a 2021 graduate of the College and economics major, at least five students will be awarded the “S. Joel Schur Family Economics Prize” each year for the quality of their work in the Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics courses.  After his retirement from the University, the name of these awards will revert to the “Allen R. Sanderson Economics Prizes” to honor our colleague and long-time instructor of Economics 100 and 102.

2023 Recipients

  • Charles Brennan
  • Benjamin Randall
  • Veer Sethi
  • Arjun Sohur
  • Emma Xu
  • Luke Yelenick
  • Yujie (Jerry) Zhou

2022 Recipients

  • Divya Mehrotra
  • ​Anna Murchie
  • Sabrina Schlesinger
  • Yasmin Shalim
  • Madelyn St Amand 
The Becker Friedman Undergraduate Awards

Class of 2019

  • Rohit Chandran, Ariel Goldszmidt, and Ruishan “Ruby” Zhang: The Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Thomas Yu: The Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics

Class of 2017

  • Anya Marchenko and Robbie Minton - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics
  • Jacob Dorn and Cameron Taylor - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Alex Foster and Sylvia Klosin - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service

Class of 2016

  • Abhi Gupta and Daniel Roberts - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics
  • Matthew Tauzer - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Nicole Gorton - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service

Class of 2015

  • Daniele Caratelli and Zefeng Chen - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics
  • Jacob Conway and Simon Lazarus - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Basil Halperin and Kayla Reinherz - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service

Class of 2014

  • Botao Wu - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics
  • Suraj Malladi - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Chris Denning - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service

Class of 2013

  • Klakow Akepanidtaworn - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Macroeconomics
  • Anthony Zhang - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement in Microeconomics
  • Defne Ozaltun - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service

Class of 2012

  • Paul Ho - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Academic Achievement
  • William Burgo - Becker Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service
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 2013

  • Klakow Akepanidtaworn, "Two Essays on Output"

Class of 2012

  • Maryclare Griffin, "Effects of Early Life Community Violence on the Efficacy of Early Childhood Education Programs"
  • Ryan Wang, "Seller Strategies and Price Dynamics on Amazon Marketplace"\

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 2019

  • Ariel Goldszmidt “The Value of Time: Evidence from a Large-Scale Rideshare Experiment”
  • Won Woo Kim “A Nation of Makers: Endogenous Innovation in Makerspaces”
  • Isabel Almazan “Modelling the Impact of the Education Gap on Marriage Outcomes”

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

Class of 2014

  • Frank Pinter, Harvard Business School (Honorable Mention)

Class of 2013

  • Joshua Bosshardt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Class of 2012

  • Samuel Moy, Harvard
  • Jake Torcasso, University of Chicago

Class of 2010

  • Ross Doppelt, New York University
  • Dana Chandler, University of Chicago

Class of 2009

  • John Eric Humphries, University of Chicago
  • Vikram Jambulapati, MIT Sloan

Class of 2006

  • Nathaniel D. Henderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology