Six Undergraduate Students for the Economics Department at Harvard Named Hoopes Prize Winners

Eighty-three received the distinguished Hoopes Prize for outstanding academic research work. The prize comes with an extensive application process requiring a nomination from a faculty member and a review by a prize committee who award the prize based on the breadth and impact of the nominated works (typically senior theses).

The Hoopes prize was created from the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes ’19 to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly works or research. The fund provides undergraduate prizes to be given for the purpose of “promoting, improving and enhancing the quality of education…in literary, artistic, musical, scientific, historical or other academic subjects made part of the College curriculum under Faculty supervision and instruction, particularly by recognizing, promoting, honoring and rewarding excellence in the work of undergraduates and their capabilities and skills in any subject, projects of research in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the instruction or supervision of the Faculty.” An “incidental objective or purpose” of the fund is to “promote excellence in the art of teaching.” Awards are therefore given to the members of the Faculty or teaching staff who have both supervised and nominated the prize-winning work of undergraduates.

Here is list of winners from the Economics department with their advisors and thesis titles included:

Anna Katherine Barnett-Hartfor her submission entitled “The Story of the CDO Market Meltdown: An Empirical Analysis”
Nominated by Professor Efraim Benmelech

Jung Eun Hwang for her submission entitled “MIT or Tsinghua? A Panel Data Analysis of the Determinants of Domestic Higher Education and International Student Mobility”
Nominated by Professor Richard Freeman

Charles Redlick for his submission entitled “Average Marginal Tax Rates in the United States: A New Empirical Study of their Predictability and Macroeconomic Effects, 1913 – 2006”
Nominated by Professor Robert Barro

Benjamin Schoefer for his submission entitled “Regulation and Taxation: A Complementarity”
Nominated by Professor Andrei Shleifer

John James Snidowfor his submission entitled “Rich Land, Rich Country, Poor People: The effects of coal endowment on income and local institutions in the United States”
Nominated by Professor Nathan Nunn

Dmitry Taubinsky for his submission entitled “Self-Justification and Subjective Updating”
Nominated by Professor David Laibson.

For more information, please see the following links:

Harvard Crimson, “Recipients of Hoopes Prize Announced”, May 18, 2009

Complete list of 2009 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize Winners

Hoopes Prize Information