Winter 2022 Undergraduate Research Winners Announced
The Department of Economics is happy to announce the winners of the Winter 2022 Undergraduate Research Prizes. Each term, the department awards two prizes: 1) The Peter Sinclair Undergraduate Research Prize for longer research papers, typically those submitted to EC481, our capstone research project course; 2) The Short Undergraduate Research Prize, for shorter papers on any topic in economics.
For Winter 2022, the Peter Sinclair Undergraduate Research Prize is awarded to Alexander Bond for his paper “Copper and Silicon Interaction with Semiconductor Equity Index Prices.” In this paper, Alexander models the relationship between copper and silicon prices and the stock price of semiconductor companies using different methods, and then assesses the performance of each model in forecasting semiconductor stock prices. These results are important given the increasing importance of semiconductors in the economy, and the recent issues companies have faced meeting worldwide demand for these products.
Alexander is a 4th year student in the Economics and Financial Management program, minoring in computer science. Congratulations to Alexander for an interesting, relevant paper that shows a high level of skill in data analysis.
We also have 2 runners up:
- Xiying Qin – “I Deserve a Better Job: Determinants and Consequences of Overeducation in Canada”
- Raphael Tang – “Redefining the Phillips Curve: Dynamic Policy Analysis with Multivariate Stochastic Processes”
The Short Undergraduate Paper Prize is awarded to James Williams for his paper “Forecasting Inflation and Maintaining Capital Gains.” In this paper, James compares different models for forecasting inflation, finding that a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is superior to others he tested because it has the lowest error in prediction. In a world where inflation is one of the top economic issues around the globe, James’ paper is important as it provides information on which models do best in letting us know where the inflation rate might be going.
James is 4th year student in the Economics and Financial Management Program. I also congratulate James on a policy-relevant paper with sophisticated data analysis.
We have one runner up for the short paper prize:
Greyson Silva-Addo – “The Effects of Foreign Direct Investment and Trade on GDP Growth Rate in Selected African Countries”
As always, we receive many very high quality submissions and, even though they may not have won the prize, I want to congratulate all of our students who submitted papers on their excellent research