19 Graduate Students Win Support for Dissertation Research

The NBER annually 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 2023-24 academic year, in each case after a widely-disseminated call for applications.

Predoctoral fellowships to support dissertation writers in aging and health economics have been awarded to Anthony Bald, Ilana Salant, and Connie Xu of Harvard University; Theodore Caputi, Dean Li, and Kelsey Moran of MIT; Steven Lee of Brown University, and Woojin Kim of the University of California, Berkeley. These fellowships are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.

Bald is studying the health and welfare of school-age children and the supply of healthcare workers in historical perspective. Salant is studying the economics of long-term and post-acute care, with a specific focus on home-based care. Xu is researching topics at the intersection of labor and health economics, particularly innovation, the healthcare and life sciences workforce, and the economics of science. Caputi studies behavioral aspects of public health, such as drug use, violence, and crime, and their effects on economic outcomes. Li is studying the effects of outsourcing, technological change, and consolidation on healthcare labor markets and healthcare delivery. Moran analyzes the factors influencing hospital provision of charity care as well as the effects of health information exchange on patients and organizations. Lee is studying behavioral factors that drive take-up of health care, including vaccines and alternative medicine. Kim is examining the extent of political differences in medical practice across the United States and the impact of the increasingly polarized political climate.

Graduate fellowships in retirement and disability policy research, sponsored by the Social Security Administration, have been awarded to Marai Hayes and Sarah Kotb of Harvard University, Johnny Huynh of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Cesia Sanchez of the University of California, Berkeley. Hayes is studying the effects of childhood health on later-life earnings and retirement wealth as well as the interaction between childhood health and racial disparities in wealth. Kotb studies how the design of public health insurance programs affects welfare and public spending. Huynh is studying the impact of disability compensation on the well-being of veterans.  Sanchez is investigating how economic shocks to early-career workers affect the retirement decisions of their parents.

The NBER’s Gender in the Economy Project has awarded dissertation fellowships to Savannah Noray of Harvard University, Lindsey Uniat of Yale University, and Akanksha Vardani of Columbia University. These fellowships are sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Noray is studying the determinants of female labor supply and women's occupation choices. Uniat is studying the macroeconomic implications of changes in female labor force participation in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on technology adoption. Vardani is studying how providing home co-ownership to women in India impacts their empowerment.

Benedict Guttman-Kenney of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Charlie Rafkin of MIT have been awarded fellowships sponsored by the Institute of Consumer Money Management. Guttman-Kenney is studying how technological innovation unraveled US credit card information-sharing.  Rafkin is researching how interventions such as legal aid can affect the likelihood of eviction for renters who fall behind on their payments. 

Michael Cai of Northwestern University and Matteo Saccarola of the University of California, Berkeley have won fellowships in behavioral economics sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Cai is estimating macroeconomic models which accommodate wide classes of nonrational expectations. Saccarola is researching the formation of expectations about inflation and exchange rates using a combination of survey experiments and observational data. 

The NBER posts calls for fellowship applications each fall. Application closing dates are usually in early December. Those interested in receiving fellowship announcements can register for them at that webpage.