Class of 2023

Jason Adams

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

For me, honours is an excellent opportunity to delve deeper into the economics of the 'real-world'. So far, the honours programme has allowed me to really sink my teeth into a full-on, proper research project and also to engage in a much more detailed study of what was covered in my economics degree, both of which I feel have provided me with significant practical and theoretical skills with which I can jump-start my career.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My thesis topic is on price dispersion in the Australian electricity retail market. Basically, despite the significant homogeneity between the services provided by electricity retailers, there still persists a large amount of variation in prices between electricity plans. Our goal is to study the magnitude of this price dispersion across states and time and to determine whether certain policy instruments affected the dispersion in any way.

What do you want to do after honours?

Just as when I was considering entering honours, I am still looking to continue my studies and engage in more in-depth research. As such, I am adamant that I look to complete further postgraduate studies and to move towards completing a PhD. In the shorter-term, however, I also hope to engage in policy-related work so as to better solidify my career path.


Gabriel Beaumont

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

I chose to study honours to extend myself further than my bachelors degree. The undertaking of a thesis and research in general is a rare opportunity that allows you to delve deeply into a topic that interests and excites you. The small cohort and academic rigour also motivated me to take part in honours.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My thesis experimentally examines pollution markets and the comparative advantages between different supply mechanisms for tradeable permits.

What do you want to do after honours?

I am looking for work in policy or consulting opportunities across Australia or Europe


Joshua Grice

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

My primary motivation for undertaking Honours was to invest long-term in my capacity to meaningfully solve the world’s most pressing problems. I am convinced that the additional year will greatly deepen my economic understanding, accelerate my technical abilities, and develop new research skills by studying more advanced coursework, pursuing my own original research thesis, and interacting closely with both faculty and peers.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My honours thesis focuses on the subliminal effects of presentation style in economics education. It investigates the impact of various treatments on learner performance, engagement, and decision making in an experimental environment, with implications for behavioural economic theory and teaching practice.

What do you want to do after honours?

After honours, I am planning to continue my career working in economic consulting and public policy. However, I would also be open to exploring postgraduate study pathways after a couple of years in industry.


Mengfan Long

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

My motivation to take honours is that I want to have a deep learning of the area that I am interested in and I think writing a thesis related to it under the guidance of a supervisor can be truly helpful. Also honours year is also a good chance to learn both advanced economics and statistics knowledge.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My honours thesis is about how to use mixture models in analysing high-dimensional data especially in financial area.

What do you want to do after honours?

After honours I want to pursue a higher degree in fields like statistics, advanced maths and economics in the United States or UK.


Patrick Mead

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours

In the beginning of Aristotle's Metaphysics, he attributes to us an innate desire to understand and a natural force towards knowledge. This desire or force is what we commonly call curiosity. There is an old proverb which highlights the importance of enabling curiosity to its fullest extent. In the words of Alexander Pope, "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." In Greek Mythology, the Pierian Spring granted the drinker great knowledge. My passion for exploring this curiosity and following this proverb has led me to pursue Economics Honours

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

We wish to incorporate incomplete and nontransitive preferences into Games of Love and Hate, which are normal form games generated from strategic situations wherein an agent's utility is a function of their action and the utility of every other agent. It has been shown by Ray and Vohra that the Nash equilibra of these games are Pareto optimal. Similar results in our setting are desirable.

What do you want to do after honours?

The Honours program offers a rich array of opportunities for graduates, equipping them with the highly valued analytical and critical thinking skills needed across numerous industries, such as finance, consulting, and government. As for myself, I cannot predict what path I will follow after completing the program, but If I remain fortunate enough to follow my curiosity then I shall.


Oscar Pollack

What motivated/inspired me to undertake honours?

I was motivated to take honours because I wanted to extend my economic knowledge and have the ability to undertake a thesis, both of which are very important skills in today’s world. I also felt that having an extra year of study under my belt would be beneficial at this point in my career.

What is the topic of my honours thesis?

My thesis is looking at the relation between community sports and crime in an economic context, as there is a large amount of research on the association between the two in a European context, but none in an Australian context.

What do I want to do after honours?

After honours concludes I am looking forward to continuing at transport and infrastructure consulting firm NineSquared, where I have worked for the last two years.


Joel Rabenhorst

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours? 

After completing a Bachelors of Mathematics and Economics here at UQ, I’m excited to join the Economics Honours program to explore more advanced economics concepts, learn new quantitative tools for effective economic analysis, and gain further research experience in preparation for graduate study in economics. I look forward to learning from experienced academic researchers and to working alongside a group of motivated economics students.

What is the topic of your honours thesis? 

My thesis project extends industrial organisation theory and search theory to characterise optimal business strategies for setting prices, searching for buyers, and choosing whether to sell. In the project models, businesses have continuous inventory holdings of multiple units and face a variety of different consumer demand structures and pricing strategies from other market participants such as suppliers or retailers. I expect the findings of my thesis will be useful to analyse situations where businesses sell to customers sequentially and have large or divisible inventory holdings.

What do you want to do after honours? 

After completing the Honours program, I plan to study a PhD in economics with a goal to become an academic research economist.


Benjamin Stephens

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

I made the decision to undertake honours fairly late in my undergraduate Economics degree, so it certainly wasn’t in my plans all along. I decided to do honours because I felt it gave me the most rigorous training for a career as an Economist and allowed me to keep my options open.

I studied Economics in high school and really enjoyed the writing components of the International Baccalaureate program, and felt the thesis was a great opportunity to do some research I was interested in and give me a taste of academia and further study.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My honours thesis is investigating declining business dynamism and productivity in Australia and aims to make recommendations on firm taxation policy. I also get to use the ABS’ micro-level dataset on all Australian firms, called BLADE, which I’m super excited about.

What do you want to do after honours?

I spent the summer interning at the Reserve Bank of Australia in their Central Bank Digital Currency team and have an offer to return there as a graduate. Further study, most appealing to me is an overseas master’s program, is something I am also keen on doing at some point.


Theo Gibbons

 


Guan-Jia Huang

What motivated and/or inspired you to undertake honours?

Research is rewarding to me, and after three years of studying finance and economics, I would like to spend my final year of undergrad creating my own research project and publishing it. The challenging honours coursework will moreover bring my understanding of the subject to the next level and prepare me for a career in economics.

What is the topic of your honours thesis?

My honours thesis topic is about how the existence of uninformed traders in the presence of informed traders affects the information efficiency in a financial market.

What do you want to do after honours?

Eventually I would like to do a PhD program, however before doing so I may work a few years in industry.