Honours class 2018
(Top Row) Honours Administrator – Heidi Ellis, Hai Pham, Ransi Weerasooriya, Jason Lejcak, Honours Coordinator – Jeff Kline.
Arabella Bennett
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
I was motivated to do Honours after coming to the end of my economics degree and realising I wanted more to show from my degree - a piece of work that I had planned, researched and wrote myself. The Honours thesis was a perfect opportunity to do this.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
I’m writing my Honours thesis on the effect of rooftop solar energy uptake on demand for electricity in Queensland.
What do you want to do after honours?
I want to work in public policy, whether that be in public or private sector, and am particularly interested in long-term challenges such as infrastructure or trade.
Emily Dahl
Kate Huang
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
My main motivation in undertaking Honours was to be exposed to a broader range of Economics and to f feed my interest in using mathematical proofs in an economic context. I am fascinated with how economics enables us to study people’s behaviour in a rather logical way, and how it could potentially shed light on our understanding of the conflicts occurring within today’s society. I was also drawn by the reputation of UQ’s Honours program for its high quality of teaching and research.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
The Decentralization Property of Perfect Correlated Equilibria.
What do you want to do after honours?
Ideally, I would like to continue my further study (PhD) in economics, and ultimately pursue a career in academia.
Jason Lejcak 
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
I’ve always been fascinated with studying the mechanics of the global economic machine – attempting to understand its key drivers and how economists model these complex systems. Studying Honours provides me with a depth of knowledge beyond the undergraduate level, bolstering my understanding of an economist’s mindset and approach to these challenges. It’s also been a great opportunity to work on a thesis as part of the program, which further develops both research skills and writing ability – critical competencies for any career.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
I choose to be supervised by Associate Professor Alicia Rambaldi, who is an expert in spatial time-series modelling of house prices. Her work in this field inspired me to undertake my own research in the housing market, being a very topical subject, and study in-depth the dynamics of the Melbourne property market. The research question is focused on investigating and quantifying the impact of zoning or local government regulation, which the RBA estimates has raised house prices, beyond the cost of supply, by a substantial 73% in Sydney and 69% in Melbourne.
What do you want to do after honours?I aim to launch my career as an analyst/researcher in the private sector, with the option of returning to graduate school or even a PhD in the future. I’ve found that Honours provides a strong foundation for both academic and professional pathways.
Matthew Newcombe 
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
Interestingly, I really only entertained the idea of doing Honours quite late into my degree. Initially I aimed to push through university and pursue a career in the private sector, however, after completing a number of internships in finance, I felt I hadn’t really had the opportunity to more fully exercise my academic interests. Speaking to other students and a number of lecturers, it became apparent that honours would offer me an opportunity to pursue more academically rigorous coursework, and a chance to create independent, original research. Indeed, I couldn’t turn down such an intellectually stimulating opportunity.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
I am researching the cost to central banks of pursuing exchange rate policy at the zero lower bound, and how this has changed over time and across countries.
What do you want to do after honours?
I hope to go on to pursue further education overseas, either in Britain, or in the United States. While I may not to necessarily go on to pursue pure post-graduate economics, I’d like to build upon the academic interests and skills I have developed while undertaking Honours at UQ.
Hai Pham
Ransi Weerasooriya
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
I felt the 3 year undergraduate degree in economics didn’t do justice to economics and I wanted to know more. Especially the chance to learn in tandem with some really hardworking and serious students and also from some of the best instructors was another reason why I didn’t want to leave after the first three years.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
I picked to do something in econometric theory. I am trying to use machine learning methods to optimise causal inference. I find that the more I try to understand the inner workings of econometrics the more illuminating and enlightening it is.
What do you want to do after honours?
I want to do higher study, preferably a PhD. I have a few ideas like trying to reconcile the differences between heterodox and orthodox schools of thought within economics by using empirics.
Scott Williams
Lorena Xie 
What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake Honours?
I genuinely enjoyed economics/econometrics in my bachelor’s studies at UQ and I felt doing honours would enhance the fundamental skills learnt in undergrad economics courses. What’s more exciting is the opportunity to apply the skills through conducting my own research project and completing the honours thesis.
What is the topic of your honours thesis?
My thesis focuses on developing a new approach to compute standard errors for purchasing power parities(PPPs) published by the World Bank International Comparisons Program.
What do you want to do after honours?
After honours, I plan to pursue a postgrad degree in the UK/US.