Arnold Zellner Thesis Award in Econometrics and Statistics

The Business and Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association and sponsor SAS are proud to invite entrants for the 2024 Zellner Thesis Award and its $1500 prize.

The Zellner award and associated cash prize are given for the best Ph.D. thesis dealing with an applied problem in Business and Economic Statistics. It is intended to recognize outstanding work by promising young researchers in the field. The winner of the award is announced at the Annual ASA Meeting in August. A portion of the winning thesis is eligible for publication in JBES.

The award is named in honor of the late Arnold Zellner. From 1966 until his death, he was the H.G.B. Alexander Professor of Economics and Statistics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. A pioneer in econometrics, Professor Zellner is widely recognized as one of the most influential statisticians of the 20th century primarily for his lifelong contributions to the use of Bayesian methods. He is past Chair of the Business and Economic Statistics Section, past President of the American Statistical Association, founding editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, the Journal of Econometrics, and Bayesian Analysis. He founded and was the first president of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. He passed away on August 10, 2010.

Topics

The range of topics is broad and includes, among others, econometric methods, statistical problems in forecasting, seasonal adjustment, data quality, empirical studies including finance, industrial organization, health, labor, general micro, and macroeconomic analysis, as well as policy evaluations. Theses in the areas of computation, simulation, and graphics are eligible as long as the research is of direct interest to business and economic statistics.

Sponsors

The sponsors for the 2024 Zellner award are the Business and Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association under the auspices of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and SAS Institute, Inc.

 

The officers of the Business and Economic Statistics Section and the editors of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics wish to thank the SAS Institute for their generous support of the 2024 prize.

Criteria

Review standards place substantial weight on research with significant results, high-quality methodological work, substantial empirical content, and good exposition.

The research should be of immediate and practical value for applications in business and economic statistics.

Eligibility

Theses are eligible for the Zellner Award if they have been defended in the preceding two years, January 2022 to May 2024, and have not previously been considered for the Award.

Awards Committee

The editors of JBES convene the Awards Committee in consultation with the current Chair of the Business and Economic Statistics Section to form the Awards Committee from the Section Membership and the Editorial Board of JBES.

Submission Procedure

Entrants must supply a web URL from which a PDF copy of the thesis can be downloaded. After posting your thesis, send an email with your name and contact information, the date and institution of your defended thesis, and the URL, to the Zellner Awards Committee at jbes.asa@gmail.com. You will receive confirmation that your submission was received.

In order for your submission to be considered, you must arrange for one of your supervisors to send a nominating letter explaining the significance of your work to jbes.asa@gmail.com. Once this letter is received your submission will be entered into the competition.

More information on the Zellner Award can be found by contacting the Awards Committee at the e-mail address listed above. Many of the winning theses and links or references to papers derived from the theses are available on this web page.

Deadline:  May 31, 2024

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2023 Arnold Zellner Award

The Business and Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association and sponsor SAS are proud to announce the recipient of the 2023 Arnold Zellner Thesis Award: Davide Viviano for the University of California San Diego thesis "Essays in Policy Design and Statistical Inference."  An honorable mention was awarded to Kohei Yata for the Yale University thesis "Econometric Methods for Program Evaluation and Policy Choice."

The award includes a $1500 prize, generously provided by SAS Institute.

Who was Dr. Arnold Zellner?

Dr. Arnold Zellner, a pioneer in econometrics, past Chair of the Business and Economic Statistics Section, past President of the American Statistical Association, and founding editor of the Journal of Business and Economics Statistics, passed away on August 10, 2010. Some tribute pages on the web marking the life and career of Dr. Arnold Zellner:

 

Past Recipients of the Zellner Award

A complete list of past winners of the Zellner Award is available below. The letters PDF indicate a document is in the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). To view the file you will need the Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) Reader which is available for free from the Adobe website.

2022

Recipient:

Leonard Goff for the Columbia University thesis "Essays in Applied Econometrics and Labor".

Soonwoo Kwon for the Yale University thesis "Essays in Robust Methods in Econometrics".

2021

Recipient:

Andrei Zeleneev for the Princeton University thesis "Essays in Econometrics of Networks and Models with Errors-in-Variables."

Honorable Mention:

Jonathan Roth for the Harvard University thesis "Essays in Robust Inference"

Junlong Feng for the Columbia University thesis "Essays in Econometrics"​

2020

Recipient:

Wayne Yuan Gao for the Yale University thesis "Essays in Network and Panel Modeling.".

Honorable Mention:

Alessandro Casini for the Boston University thesis "Improved Methods for Statistical Inference in the Context of Various Types of Parameter Variation"​​​​​​.

Haziq Jamil for the London School of Economics and Political Science thesis "Regression Modelling Using Priors Depending on Fisher Information Covariance Kernels (I-priors).".

2019

Recipient:

Max Tabord-Meehan for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays in Econometrics".

Honorable Mention:

Vishal Kamat for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays in Microeconometrics".

Vira Semenova for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thesis “Essays in Econometrics and Machine Learning”.

Zifeng Zhao for the University of Wisconsin-Madison thesis "Modeling Time Series via Copula and Extreme Value Theory”.

2018

Recipient:

Laura Liu for the University of Pennsylvania thesis "Point and Density Forecasts in Panel Data Models".

Honorable Mention:

Daniel R. Kowal for the Cornell University thesis "Bayesian Methods for Functional and Time Series Data".

2017

Recipient:

Rogier Quaedvlieg, for Maastricht University School of Business and Economics thesis "Risk and Uncertainty".

Geert Mesters for the Vrije University thesis "Essays on Nonlinear Panel Time Series Models".

Honorable Mentions:

Mingli Chen for the Boston University thesis "Research Related to High-Dimensional Econometrics".

2016

Recipient: 

Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna, for the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid thesis "Essays on Duration and Count Data Models". 

2015

Recipient: 

Tim Christensen, for the Yale University thesis "Essays in Nonparametric Econometrics". 

Honorable Mentions:

Rasmus Varneskov, for the Aarhus University thesis "Econometric Analysis of Volatility in Financial Additive Noise Models."

Dong Hwan Oh, for the Duke University thesis, "Copulas for High Dimensions: Models, Estimation, Inference, and Applications."

2014

Recipient:

Joachim Freyberger, for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays on Models with Endogeneity."

Honorable mentions:

Brendan Kline, for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays on the Econometrics of Games"

SeoJeong Lee, for the University of Wisconsin--Madison thesis "Misspecification-Robust Bootstrap for Moment Condition Models"

Minjing Tao, for the University of Wisconsin--Madison thesis "Large Volatility Matrix Inference Based on High-frequency Financial Data"

2013

Recipient:

Xin Tong, for the Princeton University thesis, "Learning with Asymmetry, High Dimension and Social Networks"

Honorable Mention:

Rob Hall, for the Carnegie Mellon University thesis, "New Statistical Applications for Differential Privacy"

2012

Recipient:

Alex Torgovitsky, for the Yale University thesis, "Essays in Econometric Theory."

Honorable Mention:

Zhipeng Liao, for the Yale University thesis, "Shrinkage Methods for Automated Econometric Model Determination."

2011

Recipient:

Kirill Evdokimov, for the Yale University thesis "Essays on Nonparametric and Semiparametric Econometric Models."

Honorable Mention:

Xu Cheng (2010 dissertation from Yale University) and Bryan Kelly (2010 dissertation from New York University)

2010

Co-Recipients:

Francesco Bianchi, for the Princeton thesis "Three Essays in Macroeconometrics," (PDF file).

Roopesh Ranjan, for the University of Washington thesis "Combining and Evaluating Probabilistic Forecasts," (PDF file).

2009

Recipient:

Amanda Ellen Kowalski, for the MIT thesis "Essays on Medical Care Using Semiparametric and Structural Econometrics" (PDF file, approx 1.02 Meg).

Honorable Mention:

Xun Tang, for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays in Empirical Auctions and Partially Identified Econometric Models," (PDF file, approx 1.23 Meg).

2008

Recipient:

Victor Todorov, for the Duke thesis "Jump Processes in Finance: Modeling, Simulation, Inference, and Pricings" (PDF file, approx 1.8 Meg).

Honorable Mention:

Andriy Norets, for the University of Iowa thesis "Bayesian Inference for Dynamically Discrete Choice Models".

2007

Recipient:

Panle Jia, for the Yale thesis "Entry and Competition in the Retail and Service Industries" (PDF file, approx 740 KB).

Honorable Mention:

Azeem M. Shaikh, for the Stanford University thesis, "Inference for Partially Identified Econometric Models," (PDF file, approx 980 KB).

2006

Recipient:

Philipp Schmidt-Dengler, for the Yale thesis "Empirical Analysis of Dynamic Models With Multiple Agents" (PDF file, approx 741 KB).

Honorable Mentions:

Zhongjun Qu for the Boston University thesis "Essays on Structural Change, Long Memory and Cointegration," (PDF file, approx 2.9 Meg).

Stephen P. Ryan for the Duke University thesis "Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry" (PDF file, approx 1.0 Meg).

2005

Recipient:

Motohiro Yogo for the Harvard thesis "Essays on Consumption and Expected Returns" (PDF file, approx 1.0 Meg).

Honorable Mentions:

Morten Ø. Nielsen, for the University of Aarhus (Denmark) thesis, "Multivariate Fractional Integration and Cointegration," (PDF file, approx 2.2 Meg).

Giorgio E. Primiceri, for the Princeton University thesis, "The Effect of Stabilization Policy on U.S. Postwar Business Cycle Fluctuations" (PDF file, approx 1.5 Meg).

2004

Recipient:

Francesca Molinari for the Northwestern University thesis "Contaminated, Corrupted and Missing Data" (PDF file, approx 1.2 Meg).

Honorable Mentions:

Rebecca Hellerstein, for the University of California, Berkely thesis, "Empirical Essays on Vertical Contracts, Exchange Rates, and Monetary Policy," (PDF file, approx 550K).

Andrew Patton, for the University of California, San Diego thesis, "Applications of Copula Theory in Financial Econometrics," (PDF file, approx 1.5 Meg).

2003

Recipient:

Jin Gyo Kim for the University of Toronto thesis "Three Essays on Bayesian Choice Models" (PDF file, approx 4.3 Meg).

2002

Recipient:

Arie Beresteau for the Northwestern University thesis "Nonparametric Estimation of Supermodular Regression Functions with Applications to the Telecommunications Industry" (PDF file, approx 950K).

Honorable Mention:

Govert E. Bijwaard for the Free University (Amsterdam) thesis "Rank Estimation of Duration Models" (PDF file, approx 893K).

2001

Co-Recipients:

Mikhail Chernov for the Pennsylvania State University thesis "Essays in Financial Econometrics", available in PDF format, (approx 1.45 Meg).

Monika Piazzesi for the Stanford University thesis "Essays in Monitary Policy and Asset Pricing", available in PDF format, (approx 854K).

2000

Recipient:

Elie T. Tamer, for the Northwestern University thesis "Studies in Incomplete Econometric Models", which includes material from the following papers: "Incomplete Simultaneous Discrete Response Model with Multiple Equilibria," available in PDF format (approx 4.93 Meg) and "Inference on Regressions with Interval Data on a Regressor or Outcome," available in PDF format (approx 258K).

Honorable Mentions:

Alberto Abadie, for the MIT thesis "Semiparametric Instrumental Variable Methods for Causal Response Models," available in PostScript format (approx 816K).

Han Hong, for the Stanford University thesis "Equilibrium and Econometric Model of Ascending Auctions," available in PDF format (approx 909K).

1999

Co-Recipients:

Qiang Dai, for the Stanford University thesis "Specification Analysis of Affine Term Structure Models," available in PostScript (approx 594K) and PDF (approx 874K) formats.

Keisuke Hirano, for the Harvard University thesis "Essays on the Econometric Analysis of Panel Data," available on his research papers site.

1998

Recipient:

Patrick L. Bajari, for the University of Minnesota thesis "The First Price Sealed Bid Auction with Asymmetric Bidders: Theory with Applications."

Honorable Mentions:

Tong Li, for the University of Southern California thesis "Affiliated Private Values in OCS Wildcat Auctions,"

Ahmet K. Tahmiscioglu, for the University of Southern California thesis "A Bayesian Analysis of Pooling Cross-Section and Time Series Data: An Investigation of Company Investment Behavior."

1997

Recipient:

Jeffrey Currie, for the University of Chicago thesis "The Geographic Extent of the Market: Theory and Application to U.S. Petroleum Markets."

Honorable Mentions:

Jason Abrevaya, for the MIT thesis "Semiparametric Estimation Methods for Nonlinear Panel Data Models and Mismeasured Dependent Variables,"

Stephen Gray, for the Stanford thesis "Essays in Financial Economics."

1996

Recipient:

Ekaterina Kyriazidou, for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays in Estimation and Testing of Econometric Models." available in PDF format (approx 1.22 Meg).

Honorable Mention:

Graham Elliot, for the Harvard University thesis "Application of Local to Unity Asymptotic Theory to Time Series Regression."

1995

Recipient:

Marjorie Rosenberg, for the University of Michigan thesis "A Hierarchical Bayesian Model of the Rate of Non-Acceptable In-patient Hospital Utilization.", which led to the paper "A Statistical Control Model for Utilization Management Programs", available in PDF format.

Honorable Mention:

Phillip Braun, for the University of Chicago thesis "Asset Pricing and Capital Investment."

1994

Recipient:

Geert Bekaert, for the Northwestern University thesis "Empirical Analysis of Foreign Exchange Markets: General Equilibrium Perspectives."

Honorable Mention:

Yacine Aït-Sahalia, for the MIT thesis "Nonparametric Functional Estimation with Applications to Financial Models," which includes material from the following papers: "Nonparametric Pricing of Interest Rate Derivative Structures," available in PDF format (approx 1.66 Meg) and "Testing Continuous Time Models of the Spot Interest Rate" available in PDF format (approx 1.66 Meg)