The Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science was established in 1998 in memory of Dr. Benjamin H. Stevens (1929–1997), an intellectual leader whose selfless devotion to graduate students as teacher, advisor, mentor, and friend continues to have a profound impact on the field of Regional Science. Graduate students enrolled in Ph.D. programs in North America are eligible to compete for the Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in support of their dissertation research in Regional Science.
Faculty at all North American Ph.D. programs are asked to encourage their best students to apply for the 24 th Stevens Graduate Fellowship, which will support the winning student’s dissertation research in the field of Regional Science with a fellowship stipend of $30,000 for the 2024–2025 academic year. The application deadline is February 15, 2024. Full submission guidelines may be found at www.narsc.org/newsite/awards-prizes/applications/
Seohee Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Duke University has been selected as the winner of the 23 rd Annual Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science. The Fellowship will provide a 2023–2024 Academic Year stipend of $30,000 to support Ms. Kim’s dissertation research on “National Homebuilders’ Internal Capital Networks and Local Housing Outcomes.”
Ms. Kim’s research investigates how local housing shocks propagate across US regions through homebuilders’ internal capital markets and spillovers to competing builders. Despite their importance in the provision of affordable housing, there has been a scarcity of research on modeling the supply side of new housing markets, particularly the behavior of large national homebuilders. This is due to the difficulty of assembling data on the production network and outcomes, and also the lack of fundamental understanding of the nature of competition among builders. Her research quantifies the aggregate and distributional impact of rising homebuilding industry concentration and presents the results of a counterfactual scenario in which financial frictions for corporate homebuilders are eliminated. Ms. Kim’s doctoral research is supervised by Daniel Yi Xu, Professor of Economics at Duke University.
In addition to selecting the Fellowship recipient, the Selection Committee identified three applicants as meriting special recognition as finalists in the 23rd Annual Competition: Laura Weiwu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advised by David Donaldson; Kate Harwood, New York University, advised by Ingrid Ellen; and Joop Yup Park, Duke University, advised by Patrick Bayer.
The 23rd competition winner and finalists will be recognized at the awards luncheon of the 70th North American Meetings of the RSAI in San Diego, CA. The Committee thanks the 15 students who entered the competition, as well as their dissertation supervisors.
The 2023 Stevens Fellowship competition was overseen by a Selection Committee composed of: Steven Deller, University of Wisconsin, Madison (Chair); Nicholas Nagle, University of Tennessee; Shaoming Cheng, Florida International University; Heather Stephens, West Virginia University; and Zhenhau Chen, The Ohio State University. The Stevens Fellowship Committee administers the Stevens Fellowship Fund on behalf of the North American Regional Science Council; its members are: Tony Smith, University of Pennsylvania, Chair; David Plane, University of Arizona, Secretary; Michael Lahr, Rutgers University, Treasurer; Janet Kohlhase, University of Houston; and John Sporing, Executive Director of NARSC.
Fundraising to support the Stevens Fellowship Fund, begun in 1998, is ongoing. Donations may be made either via credit card by accessing the User Area of the NARSC website or by sending a check to: The Stevens Fellowship Fund / First Financial Bank, Attn: Danville Trust Department / One Towne Center / Danville, IL 61832 USA.
The Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science has been awarded to the following students:
2000 Michael J. Greenwald (University of California,Irvine; Marlon Boarnet, advisor)
2001 Rachel Franklin (University of Arizona; Brigitte Waldorf, advisor)
2002 Jung Won Son (University of California-Los Angeles; Leobardo Estrada, advisor)
2003 Alison Davis Reum (North Carolina State University; V. Kerry Smith, advisor)
2004 Nicholas Nagle (Univ. of California-Santa Barbara; Stuart H. Sweeney, advisor)
2005 Xiaokun Wang (University of Texas at Austin; Kara Kockelman, advisor)
2006 Joshua Drucker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Harvey Goldstein and Edward Feser, advisors)
2007 Alvin Murphy (Duke University; Patrick Bayer, advisor)
2008 Paavo Monkkonen (University of California, Berkeley; David E. Dowall, advisor)
2009 Elizabeth Mack (Indiana University; Tony H. Grubesic, advisor)
2010 Adam Storeygard (Brown University; J. Vernon Henderson, advisor)
2011 Peter Richards (Michigan State University; Robert Walker, advisor)
2012 Ran Wei (Arizona State University; Alan Murray, advisor)
2013 Zhenhua Chen (George Mason University; Kingsley Haynes, advisor)
2014 No award made
2015 Ahmadreza Faghih Imani (McGill University; Naveen Eluru, advisor)
2016 Nick Tsivanidis (University of Chicago; Chang-Tai Hsieh, advisor)
2017 Lindsay E. Relihan (University of Pennsylvania; Gilles Duranton, advisor)
2018 Daniel Crown (The Ohio State University; Mark Partridge, advisor)
2019 Prottoy A. Akbar (University of Pittsburgh, Randall Walsh, advisor)
2020 Margaret Bock (West Virginia University, Joshua Hall, advisor)
2021 Melissa Haller (University of California, Los Angeles, David Rigby, advisor)
2022 Xuequan Elsie Peng (University of Pennsylvania, Gilles Duranton, advisor)
2023 Seohee Kim (Duke University, Daniel Yi Xu, advisor)