"I have recently had the pleasure to present my UG dissertation at the 2021 Carroll Round, organised by students at Georgetown University.

My research focused on the electoral effects of intensified trade between Eastern and Western Europe and was supervised by Dr Arianna Ornaghi. The Carroll Round was an exceptional way to complete the research journey that started in November 2019 and led to the final submission in May 2020. After so much time spent reviewing the literature and analysing data, it was extremely rewarding to be able to present the final work to a cohort of passionate students from all over the world, sharing a common interest in economic research. The discussion around my paper and the other works presented in my session was lively and extremely deep, leading to a number of suggestions for improvement. I was very privileged to have esteemed Prof. Cumby as chair of my session and was very grateful for his comments, too.

The other sessions were also very stimulating and all papers offered a new perspective on topical issues ranging from digital currencies to development policies. At the end of the sessions we also had the chance to attend exclusive talks organised by the event committee. In particular, we had a talk delivered by Prof. Romer and Dr. Stephens-Dawidovitz with an opportunity to interact with them very closely. I found the work presented by Dr. Stephens-Dawidovitz especially compelling and fascinating. He discussed the usage of data from social networks and online searches to address a number of socially relevant issues that conventional survey data cannot answer especially when it comes to personal beliefs, social stigmas and racism.”

"What impressed me the most about the Carroll Round was the striking passion of all the participants, which was of course translated into very interesting and engaging presentation sessions. The conference was a very rewarding experience through which not only I received valuable feedback on my own research but also I discovered completely new topics and ideas in economics thanks to some fascinating papers. I am very happy I had the opportunity to participate in the 20^th Carroll Round and present my paper in front of some of the most talented economics students, definitely one of my greatest accomplishments in my undergraduate career."

Charles has recorded a video discussing his paper which can be viewed on his YouTube channel. The video transcript is available here.

"Presenting my research on the impact of high-speed rail on income inequality at the 2021 Carroll Round Conference was such an eye-opening and enjoyable experience.

Over the course of four days, I had the opportunity to engage with some exceptional, perceptive and poignant economic research from undergraduates across the world. It was inspiring to see how each participant used their unique experiences and interests to contribute to some of the most pressing economic discussions. Even though the conference had to be delivered over zoom, rather than in-person, the event was lively, stimulating and challenging. Within a couple of hours the discussion covered many topics from whether Ricardian equivalence holds when looking at current consumer spending decisions resulting from the US government’s COVID Economic Impact Payments to exploring how the exclusion of immigrants from the welfare support under the US's 1996 PRWORA Act impacted their wages.

In addition to the 24 researcher presentations, we had the opportunity to attend talks by Nobel Laureate, Paul Romer and ex-google data scientist and author, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, along with a number of social activities to participate in.

At one of the social events the conference chair said to me “Warwick always has a strong presence at this conference and having taken part in the application selection process, it’s easy to see why. The standard of econometric analysis from all Warwick applicants is excellent.”

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all teaching staff in the Department of Economics, particularly my RAE supervisor Dr Lory Barile and RAE Module Leader Professor Gianna Boero. Thank you for facilitating this journey to share my research at such a wonderful event."