2025 Economics Newsletter
Message from the Chair
Department Spotlight
Department Kudos
Faculty in the News
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Chair
Dear GW Department of Economics alumni,
Welcome to the 2025 GW Department of Economics newsletter!
These newsletters allow us to share significant developments at the department, feature milestones of our students and highlight some of the special achievements of alumni, current and graduating students and our faculty.
First, the department is preparing for the formal launch of our newly reorganized Center for Economic Research (CER). Professor Tara Sinclair has led the CER in this our organizing and startup year. Professor Tomas Williams will step up to become CER director this summer.
The CER is structured around five major program initiatives. Professor Ben Williams will be leading an innovative program within the center on Artificial Intelligence (AI) economics. The H.O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting has for several years played a central role in economics research on forecast evaluation—not just within GW, but across the many agencies and organizations in the D.C. area that are engaged in economic forecasting work.
The three other CER initiatives build on the department’s traditional strengths, and longstanding joint research and ongoing workshop series. These are the Applied Microeconomics, Trade & Development and Macro-International research programs. Throughout the year, the department has maintained an active program of weekly research events, sponsored by all four major research workshop series which are now part of the CER umbrella.
We also cosponsored several economics conferences and symposia, including with the World Bank and with several D.C.-area economics field consortia on development, finance, labor, networks and trade along with joint events with the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs.
We welcome you to join us at our events in the coming year!
As you will see in the Kudos section below, in the last year our faculty have published in top economics journals and are having major impacts through their contributions to economic analysis and policy.
We are keeping our classes updated with the latest key topics and findings. Over the past few years we have introduced several new courses, including Behavioral Economics, which is being taught at the undergrad level for the first time this spring 2025 semester! The new course on the Economics of Personal Finance, which is being taught for the second time this spring 2025 semester, has proved enormously popular and appears to be attracting new students to the economics BA and BS majors.
The department also established a special Taskforce Committee on Undergraduate Majors and Enrollments to take a deep dive into data, make sure we are on the cutting edge of effective economics pedagogy and course offerings and engage all of today’s students in the most welcoming way possible.
The committee presented its findings and recommendations to the faculty in December 2024. I deeply appreciate the dedicated efforts of Professors Paul Carrillo, Irene Foster, Elira Kuka, Dan Mackay, Pao-Lin Tien, Ben Williams (chair) and Tony Yezer.
On behalf of the department, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for our alumni whose generous donations have contributed to the success of our students and our academic and research programs.
On a personal note, this will be my last Chair’s Letter, which it has been my privilege and pleasure to write over the past six years. Having served two three-year terms as chair, the baton is being passed to Professor Tara Sinclair. I cannot imagine a more ideal colleague for the role of chair of the Department of Economics as Tara. This academic year, she returned to teaching after two years at the United States Treasury Department where she served as assistant secretary for macroeconomics.
All of us at the department look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the coming year. Thank you so much for your support and involvement, and please stay in touch!
Sincerely,
Stephen C. Smith
Chair, Department of Economics
Department Spotlight
Student Speedskater Racing Toward Olympic Dreams
CCAS senior Noah Troppe, the son of two former GW student-athletes, is making his own mark on the ice as he balances his economics and public policy majors with his quest for Olympic gold. He was profiled in GW Today.
Department Kudos
Michael Bradley (Economics) received $150,000 from the United States Postal Service for “Research on Product Costing under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.”
Barry Chiswick was interviewed for the podcast “The Work Goes On: An Oral History of Industrial Relations and Labor Economics.”
Alessandra Fenizia published a paper accepted at the American Economic Review, widely considered one of the top two journals in economics.
Irene Foster published a paper in the Review of Income and Wealth.
James Foster was awarded the OVPR Distinguished Career Award.
Amy Guisinger, PhD ‘16, was promoted to associate professor with tenure at Lafayette College, Easton, Penn., effective July 2024
Elira Kuka received a $365,668 grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to study how application assistance affects recipients of unemployment benefits.
Jay Shambaugh returned to the department following his government service leave as under secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury, having received Senate confirmation following his appointment by President Biden. This position was previously held by other luminaries such as Paul Volcker, John Taylor, Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. He also published a co-authored article in the IMF Economic Review.
Tara Sinclair returned from government service leave as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics in the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury. She also published papers in the Journal of Applied Econometrics and the prestigious AEA Papers and Proceedings.
Nicholas Vonortas published articles in The Journal of Technology Transfer and the Annals of Science and Technology Policy.
Zhoudan Xie, PhD ’25, and Xiaohan Ma, PhD ‘16, authored “The Economic Impact of Uncertainty about U.S. Regulations of the Energy Sector” which has now been accepted at Economic Inquiry.
Faculty in the News!
Paul Carrillo published an article in the November 2024 issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, “Turn off the faucet: Can individual meters reduce water consumption?”
Maggie Chen was quoted by The New York Times in the article “How Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Government-Slashing Spree Could Backfire.”
Barry Chiswick was quoted by the Washington Examiner in the article “Women have always worked for pay.”
Joseph Cordes was quoted by Hearst TV in the article “Presidential candidates push economic plans ahead of Election Day.” He was also quoted by Tegna Broadcasting in the article “What we can VERIFY about Project 2025 and the FDIC.”
Alessandra Fenizia was quoted by The Hill in the article “Federal telework improves productivity. Why is Congress so desperate to limit it?”
James Foster was quoted by Science in the article “Can AI help beat poverty? Researchers test ways to aid the poorest people.”
Diana Furchtgott-Roth authored the article “More inflation: A looming strike threatens to drive supply down and prices up” for The Hill.
Steven Hamilton was quoted in numerous media outlets, including by NewsNation in the article “Will Trump’s federal hiring freeze affect IRS tax returns?” and by The Hill in the article “Will Trump’s federal hiring freeze affect IRS tax returns?” He spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in the article “Why some economists think an RBA rate cut is a bad idea” and the segment “Canada and Mexico slam Trump's tariff plan.” He was quoted by ABC News in the article “By the numbers: Where the economy stands on Election Day.” He was quoted by Nexstar Media Group in the articles “Voters say the economy is a top issue” and “Harris and Trump offer vastly different tax ideas.”
He authored the article “Negative gearing isn’t the cause of our housing crisis, so curbing it isn’t the solution” for The Sydney Morning Herald and was quoted by The Conversation in the article “How do economics judge Australia’s response to the COVID pandemic?” He published a paper in the August 2024 Journal of Public Economics, “Rounded Up: Using round numbers to identify tax evasion,” and co-authored the article “Nuclear is unviable because of economics, not engineering” for Financial Review.
Remi Jedwab published a co-authored paper in October 2024 at the prestigious scholarly journal The Journal of Economic Growth, “Scars of pandemics from lost schooling and experience: aggregate implications and gender differences through the lens of COVID-19.”
Sumit Joshi published an article in the July 2024 issue of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, “Alliance Formation in a Multipolar World.”
Elira Kuka published an article (with Na’ama Shenhav) in the June 2024 American Economic Review, “Long-Run Effects of Incentivizing Work after Childbirth.”
Joseph Pelzman published an article in the Dec. 2024 issue of Global Economy Journal, “AN ECONOMIC PLAN FOR REBUILDING GAZA: A BOT APPROACH.”
Roberto Samaniego published a co-authored paper in October 2024 in the prestigious scholarly journal The Journal of Economic Growth, “Scars of pandemics from lost schooling and experience: aggregate implications and gender differences through the lens of COVID-19” as well as articles in the Canadian Journal of Economics and the Journal of Money Credit and Banking.
Tara Sinclair was quoted by many media outlets. Among them, she spoke to Marketplace in the segment “No, private data can’t replace public data.” She was also quoted by The Associated Press in the article “Federal Reserve is likely to slow its rate cuts with inflation pressures still elevated” and by the Financial Times in the article “Economists trim Fed rate cut estimates on fear of Trump inflation surge.” She was quoted by the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s “National News Desk” in the article “Fed set to cut interest rates for second time this year; Is election a factor?” and by the Washington Examiner in the article “High interest rates could bedevil Trump as debt rises” and by The Independent in the article “Retailers seize on Trump tariff fears and urge shoppers to buy now.” She was quoted by S&P Global in the article “Fed rate cut opens doors to further global central bank easing”; by The New York Times in the article “Wages Have Outpaced Inflation. But Not For Everyone”; and by USA Today in the article “Americans still want to be homeowners, climate change and all.”
She was quoted by NerdWallet in the article “How Harris and Trump Want to Battle Inflation and Lower Prices” and by PolitiFact in the article “Kamala Harris exaggerates scale of prepandemic manufacturing job losses.” She was also quoted by The New York Times in the article “Recession Fears May Be Overstated, but Not Unfounded”and by U.S. News & World Report in the article “Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Caught in the Crossfire of the 2024 Election.”She was quoted in the PolitiFact articles “Have incomes outpaced inflation since Joe Biden took office?”; “Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire claim that Biden, Harris manipulated job data”; and “Economists say J.D. Vance is wrong about benefits of tariffs outweighing negatives.”
Steven Suranovic was quoted by CNN in the article “From Taylor Swift tickets to gasoline — these days everyone feels like they’re being price-gouged. Are they?”
Robert A. Van Order was quoted by The National Desk in the article “Mortgage rates rising despite rate cut last month.”
Nicholas Vonortas spoke to Canal UM Brasil in the segment “Small businesses are driving innovation around the world.”
Joann Weiner was quoted by TRT World in the article “Trump or Harris: Who has the better economic plan?”
Alumni Class Notes
- Melissa Avery, BS ’18, is living in Switzerland, working at the Nestle global headquarters as a senior operations strategy expert. She is responsible for enabling strategic decisions on the long term manufacturing and logistics network.
- Hannah Baer, BS ’17, received a promotion to global commercial marketing manager at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics. She is also currently co-leading GW alumni events in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area after relocating there in 2023.
- Vikram Bakhru, BA ’01, serves as president & CEO of Single Thread Health, an infrastructure platform for digital health companies. Prior to Single Thread, he served as CEO of Innovista Health, a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield.
- Andrea Bolognesi, BS ’17, is living in Turin, Italy, his home country. After working in research and consulting for a few years, he founded Ziflo in early 2024. Ziflo simplifies international trade and customs compliance operations for manufacturers and wholesalers.
- David Cutting, BA ’10, was promoted to associate director of Finance at EY US LLP. He is the client-facing representative for innovative reporting solutions and data analytics for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa.
- Matthew Frey, MA ’20, moved back to Kentucky after graduating from George Washington University. After a year running a nonprofit focused on financial empowerment for all Kentuckians, he now runs legislative affairs for the Kentucky State Auditor.
- Ed Harrison, BA ’92, was named managing director for B2B Technology at New York PR firm Orchestra. He’s tasked with growing the agency’s roster of enterprise technology clients, helping them get and retain attention in the new media landscape.
- Monica Huddleston, BA ’75, is a volunteer board member for a few nonprofits and uses her time to stay on top of the financial condition of the organizations she serves.
- Natalie Ihrman, BA ’21, married fellow GW alum Hunter Ihrman. The two were friends throughout college but only started dating after graduation. Natalie is a press secretary in the U.S. Senate.
- Tanveer Kathawalla, BA ’13, founded and leads Pioneer1890 Partners, 1st Merchant Bank for Venture Special Situations with an emphasis on companies in mission-critical sectors.
- Young Darson Guliwalema Mkandawire, MA ’18, is a senior manager at IDinsight, leading global research teams in rigorous evaluations and advisory work that helps global leaders make thoughtful decisions.
- Jean Montgomery, PhD ’75, has been retired for 22 years, keeping busy with new projects.
- Luke Mueller-oden, BS ’21, is now entering his second year as an economist at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission where he helps oversee the rules governing wholesale electric markets.
- Eleni Psaltis, BA ’22, is currently pursuing her master’s in real estate development at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.