19 Graduate Students Win Support for Dissertation Research

Each year, the NBER provides fellowship support for the dissertation research of a number of doctoral students in economics and finance. Nineteen students have been awarded support for the 2022–23 academic year.

Two students, Menaka Hampole of Northwestern University and Xian Ng of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, are the inaugural fellows in a new program that supports dissertation research on consumer financial management. The fellowship program is supported by the Institute of Consumer Money Management. Hampole is studying how access to financial aid affects post-college earnings trajectories, while Ng is using lenders’ requirements that borrowers purchase private mortgage insurance to study the determinants of household consumption and saving behavior.

Predoctoral fellowships to support dissertation writers in aging and health economics have been awarded to Aaron Berman, Geoffrey Kocks, and Anna Russo of MIT, Travis Donahoe, Chika Okafor, Ilana Salant, and Myles Wagner of Harvard University, and Matthew Zahn of Johns Hopkins University. These fellowships are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.

Berman studies factors influencing the take-up of health care, particularly vaccines, in developed and developing countries. Kocks focuses on the impact of various policy interventions on educational and racial disparities in health outcomes. Russo investigates the efficiency and distributional consequences of capacity constraints and rationing in health care. Donahoe’s research examines social and economic determinants of mortality, with an emphasis on harmful substance related deaths in the United States. Okafor studies health disparities arising from the criminal justice system as well as from the prospective impacts of climate change. Salant studies the industrial organization of healthcare providers, including effects of private equity on hospital markets and effects of vertical integration between providers and insurers. Wagner researches selection and policy design in health insurance markets. Zahn investigates how competition between payers and providers in healthcare markets affects health outcomes.

Dissertation fellowships in retirement and disability policy research sponsored by the Social Security Administration have been awarded to Johnny Huynh of the University of California, Los Angeles, Ari Ne’eman of Harvard, Cesia Sanchez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Christiane Szerman of Princeton University. Huynh studies the impact of disability compensation on military veterans’ well-being. Ne’eman is analyzing how changes in Medicaid policy affect the utilization of long-term services and supports as well as disability employment outcomes. Sanchez studies how economic shocks experienced by early career workers affect the retirement decisions of their parents. Szerman is studying the impact of affirmative action regulation on workers and firms.

John Conlon of Harvard and Mateo Velásquez-Giraldo of Johns Hopkins University won dissertation fellowships in behavioral macroeconomics supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Conlon studies how expectation formation responds to information, particularly in the context of students’ choices about education. Velásquez-Giraldo investigates how survey measures of macroeconomic beliefs can help explain life-cycle consumption and portfolio decisions.

The NBER’s Gender in the Economy Project has awarded dissertation fellowships to Amy Burnett Cross of American University, Lisa Ho of MIT, and Dev Patel of Harvard. The fellowships are sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Cross will examine how women serving in combat beginning in 2016, and gender desegregation of the Army in 1977, affected women’s participation in male-dominated civilian occupations. Ho is investigating the value of flexibility in location, hours, and multitasking in increasing female labor force participation, and the role of part-time, at-home work as a stepping stone to full-time, away-from-home employment. Patel is exploring the impact of a World War II-era ban on female employment in India’s mines on women’s outcomes.

Calls for fellowship applications are posted each fall at https://www.nber.org/career-resources/calls-fellowship-applications.

Application closing dates are usually in early December. Those interested in receiving fellowship announcements can register for them at that webpage.