Past ICS research student earns Possen Memorial Award

Noah Kwicklis A&S ‘17 has been awarded the Uri M. Possen Memorial Award for Undergraduate Research and earned highest honors on his undergraduate thesis “Poverty, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents.”

"The project was primarily intended to assess the effect of the 1993 earned income tax credit expansion upon the mental health and behavior of children and adolescents in lower-income recipient households," says Noah. "In doing so, the study hoped to explore the ways in which economic policy might affect non-monetary outcomes like mental welfare, which, while often difficult to measure, is vitally important to the welfare of the public as a whole. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, I found that positive shocks to family financial resources appeared to reduce externalizing behavior among children, provided the identifying assumptions of the models hold."

“I am deeply honored, both for being granted the opportunity to conduct an empirical research project of this nature as an undergraduate, and for the recognition that our work has subsequently received. Writing this thesis was truly an engaging and educational experience; I hope that it makes some contribution, if even in a small way, to our collective understanding of how social welfare may be more broadly improved by carefully constructed economic policy."

Noah worked under the direction of ICS research associate Hassan Enayati since the fall of 2017 on the project examining the relationship between poverty and adolescent mental health. “It was a privilege to work with a student with such strong conviction to quality research,” says Enayati.

After graduation, Noah will be working at the New York Federal Reserve Bank as a Research Analyst.

ICS provides financial support for mentoring students on research projects, meeting them where they are at and then building their research skills and abilities through a particular compensation or total rewards focused project. For more on past ICS research students see our student page