Winter/Spring 2025 Peter Sinclair Undergraduate Research Prizes

The Department of Economics in the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University is happy to announce the winners of the winter/spring 2025 Undergraduate Research Prize.

The Department awards The Peter Sinclair Undergraduate Research Prize for research papers, typically those submitted to EC481, our capstone research project course.

This year’s Peter Sinclair Undergraduate Research Prize is awarded to Neil Gawri. In his paper “Operation Murambatsvina and the Collapse of Public Trust: A Causal Analysis of Institutional and Economic Perceptions in Zimbabwe” Gawri examines the long-term impact of Operation Murambatsvina, a 2005 urban clearance campaign in Zimbabwe. Empirical results show that the operation led to a large 30 percentage point decline in institutional trust in in the country. Neil said: "What I enjoyed most about the paper were also the biggest challenges. Learning and applying new econometric and machine learning techniques pushed me out of my comfort zone. Yet, those challenges motivated me, and with the guidance of my professors and peers, I have gained invaluable skills from a great learning opportunity."  He has just started a position with PWC LLP as an Associate (Audit and Assurance).

The runner up was Erica McCracken, whose paper studied the effect of economic policy uncertainty on the volatility of Canadian commodity markets, is putting her research to good use in her position with the Canadian Economic Analysis Department at the Bank of Canada, and has plans to pursue graduate studies in econometrics in the future. 

Erica McCraken

And an honourable mention goes to Mariya Khoroshun for her work on The Post-USSR Extractive Curse: Regional Inequality and Development in Kazakhstan.

“On behalf of the Economics Department, we would like to congratulate these prize winners on their excellent research paper and we wish them every success in their careers,” said Associate Chair of the Department, Edda Claus. “As in previous years, we received many high quality submissions and, even though they may not have won the prize, the Economics Department congratulates all of our students who submitted papers on their excellent research.”