Explore Econ 2022: winners announced!

Explore Econ was back in-person this year for its annual live event, highlighting the excellent independent research from our undergraduate students. The Ignite Session hosted a student-staff panel discussion chaired by Marc Stears from UCL’s Policy Lab and featuring Sarah Cattan (IFS) and Asma Benhenda (Institute of Education) alongside UCL students on “Education and Inequalities”.

A panel of external judges also heard presentations from each of the shortlisted candidates and the conference awarded five prizes for:

• Best Research Paper
• Best Research Poster
• Popular Paper
• Popular Poster
• Stone Centre Prize

CTaLE Director Professor Parama Chaudhury said,

CTaLE (specifically, our Associate Director, Prof Cloda Jenkins now at Imperial) started Explore Econ in 2015 as a way to encourage students to complement their degree programme with co-curricular research on topics which caught their fancy. Since then, UCL (and Economics) have rolled out a research-based education initiative with independent inquiry built into our programmes. Meanwhile Explore Econ has gone from strength to strength to complement this initiative. This year, we introduced a blended format with an initial online competition and showcase, and an in-person culmination on June 8th. As every year, the topics covered a broad range from effects of migration on the labour market, vaccine distribution, the effect of VAT and intellectual property rights plus an innovative simulator to help students learn the macroeconomic 3-equation model. It was inspiring to see our students expand their horizons, engage with the hot topics of the day and present to an audience of peers and academics - the future of economics is bright!

ExploreEcon organiser, Dr Ramin Nassehi also commented, 

I was so excited to see a room full of eager students. What made this year's conference even more special to me was that the students were involved in every stage of its organisation: idea generation, planning, promotion, peer review of submissions and running the live event. We are proudly making Explore Econ a fully student-led conference. I believe Explore Econ's innovative blended format opens new doors for promoting research-based education, building student-staff relations and empowering students by giving them new modes of expression and presence

Explore Econ is UCL Department of Economics’ annual undergraduate research conference, inspired by research-based education and organised by the Centre for Teaching and Learning Economics (CTaLE).

Best Research Paper

Winner: Jakub Terlikowski

Jakub won the Best Research Paper prize for his work on Optimal vaccine allocation: modelling population interaction and administrative constraints

Watch his presentation:

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/TeBhbX114Qc?list=PLg9U2RdvO3e9UQjr5g-xUx2uWrVZgb3Ay

Runner-up: Guillaume Marder

For the paper What is the potential impact of a uniform VAT rate in Spain, if implemented in a revenue neutral way? (Watch their presentation on YouTube)

Best Research Poster

Winner: Neil Majithia

Neil won Best Research Poster for The Macroeconomic Simulator with a 3 Equation Model Maker

Watch his presentation:

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/q8OXv35JnJw?list=PLg9U2RdvO3e9UQjr5g-xUx2uWrVZgb3Ay

Runner-up: Adam Horne

For the poster Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth: A Complicated Relationship (Watch the YouTube video)

Popular Paper

Winner: Xingzuo Zhou, Yiang Li, Tianning Zhu, and Xiaoyo Guo

Xingzuo, Yiang, Tianning, and Xiaoyo won the Popular Paper prize out of over 400 votes for their paper Racial Hate Crime and COVID-19: A Multinomial-choice Study in the US

Watch their presentation: 

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/1DzbXQzRScs?list=PLg9U2RdvO3e9UQjr5g-xUx2uWrVZgb3Ay

Popular Poster

Winner: Gloria Guo and Xueyuan Wang

Gloria and Xueyuan won the Popular Poster prize out of 150 votes for their poster  Does the emerging social media platform promote economic growth in the UK?

Watch their presentation: 

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/Z1Xtl8t03kU?list=PLg9U2RdvO3e9UQjr5g-xUx2uWrVZgb3Ay

Stone Centre Prize

Winner: Gaurav Khatri

Gaurav won the inaugural Stone Centre prize for the paper  The Effects of Rohingya Refugees from Myanmar on Low-Skilled Wages in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh

Watch the presentation: 

YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/hMHOAksTfcE?list=PLg9U2RdvO3e9UQjr5g-xUx2uWrVZgb3Ay