The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) is pleased to announce the award of six new grants supporting research by University of Chicago faculty and students on political economics. These grants will help promote ground-breaking research through the BFI Political Economic Initiative, led by Leonardo Bursztyn, Professor in Economics and the College, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, and Konstantin Sonin. John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor, Harris School of Public Policy. The Initiative is an interdisciplinary research program that focuses an economic lens on the questions, incentives, and choices that shape political decision-making in the United States and around the world.

Grants are intended to support a number of research activities, including the purchase of new data sets and software, research assistants, and travel. When published, the insights gleaned from this research and data will have real-world impacts across a variety of topics and fields of study.

BFI is proud to announce the recipients of the research grants, listed below, along with the research the grant will be supporting.

 2021 AWARDS

Anjali Adukia
Research: Separation of Church and State? Race and Gender in Religious Private School Curricula

Christina Brown (Saieh Family Fellow in Economics)
Research: Understanding the Social Network Premium in Hiring Low Wage Workers

Rafael Jimenez and Mateusz Stalinski (Student Award)
Research: Splashing in the Toxic Spill: a Field Experiment Examining the Effects of Social Media Censorship

Ivan Chit Pan Kwok (Student Award)
Research: Immigrant Identity, Preference, and Assimilation

Luis Martinez
Research: Economic and Political Effects of Fiscal Rules: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Colombia

James A. Robinson
Research: Acting Like a State: The Case of the Colombian Paramilitaries