Congratulations to our Dissertation Prize Winners Awa Ambra Seck and John Conlon
Awa Ambra Seck was awarded the the Padma Desai Research Award for Economics.
Ambra is a development economist working at the intersection of development economics, political economy, and economic history. In her work, she combines quasi-experimental and experimental economic methods with ethnographic and historical research to understand the economics of African societies.
Her research agenda can be broadly divided into two main lines of research. First, she explores the colonial origins of emigration from sub-Saharan Africa to Southern Europe, the reasons for its persistence, and the effects that the migration phenomenon has on the outcomes of emigrants, and their community of origin. Second, she wishes to understand how persistent cultural traits shape economic incentives and policy effectiveness, with a focus on contemporary Africa.
John studies how psychological frictions can distort economic choices. He is especially interested in the consequences of, and reasons behind, mistaken expectations. In his dissertation, he (along with coauthor Dev Patel) documented that undergraduate students systematically misunderstand which jobs different college majors lead to. John will join Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Professor after a post-doc at Stanford.