how brain lesions affect personality change. The experience of living on my own and working in a teaching hospital showed me the process of researching: starting with literature searches and eventually ending with the analysis of the data. Personality change has long been associated with damage to the frontal lobe, and I used the Iowa Scales of Personality Change (ISPC) to determine how lesion location affected personality. My work at this lab helped me to learn about neuroscience in more detail, grasp how broad goals, such as the location of consciousness, may be solved by specific research, like the location of personality, and the manner in which knowledge is acquired. Because of this experience, I have solidified my resolve to do medical research in graduate school and beyond. Tag(s): Science/Technology, Health Surviving the Global Recession (individual presentations) PNE 239 168
Global Imbalance or “Global in Balance”? BeiBei Zhan ’11, Economics and Mathematics Advisor: Eric D. Hilt, Economics In an increasingly globalized world economy, the discussion of global imbalances has become both controversial and important for macroeconomic policies. While some claim that Americans’ spending behavior threatens to place future generations on a path to ruin, others are more optimistic. Aspiring to investigate this issue further, I was given the opportunity to do research at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority economics research division to formulate new methods to measure the extent of global imbalances. Using 40 years of data on 90 economies covering nearly 98 percent of world GDP, this internship enriched my experience with research design, questionnaire development, and raw data analysis. This
presentation will provide a glimpse into how economists use quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate and guide the decisions of policymakers. Tag(s): Money 169
The National Export Initiative: Making America Globally Competitive in the Twenty-First Century Melanie L. Kaplan ’12, Latin American Studies Advisor: Olga Shurchkov ’01, Economics At a time when persistently high unemployment and home foreclosure rates bring about worries of stagnation and the dreaded “double-dip recession,” people wonder what the government and its policy experts are doing to fix the ailing U.S. economy. This summer I had the opportunity to see one of the solutions in action: the National Export Initiative (NEI). Introduced by President Barack Obama in his January 2010 State of the Union Address, the NEI proposes to double U.S. exports within the next five years and to create two million American jobs in the process. As an intern at the Department of Commerce, I was privy to the inner workings of the bureaucracy and the lengthy process of policy implementation. The NEI encourages the government and the private sector to work together to improve economic growth, correct the trade imbalance, and make America globally competitive in the twenty-first century. Tag(s): Law/Politics, Money 170
Making Sense of the Money Market Mutual Fund Industry Post-Financial Crisis Maria A. Onaindia ’11, Economics and Peace and Justice Studies Advisor: Eric D. Hilt, Economics I spent my summer at The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as an intern in the supervision, regulation, and credit department. I was t h e
responsible for conducting a research project detailing instances of prime money market mutual fund support during the asset-backed commercial paper crisis of late 2007, and the failure of Lehman Brothers in September of 2008. Over one-third of all prime money market mutual funds had managers that contributed capital to their fund in order to keep the fund’s net asset value at $0.995 or greater in order to round up to $1 per share. To this day, several of these funds remain in fragile positions despite millions of dollars of capital contributions by their managers. By sifting through a sea of financial statements and raw data I was able to contribute meaningful analysis to the Federal Reserve system. Tag(s): Money 171
Changes in the Financial World: My Experience with a Company in Crisis Simi Oberoi ’11, Art History and Political Science Advisor: Joel Krieger, Political Science My internship with AXA Rosenberg, an equity management firm based in San Francisco, provided me with a unique perspective on the financial industry. Founded in 1985 by a professor at the University of California—Berkeley, and with offices worldwide, AXA Rosenberg was acquired by French insurance powerhouse AXA in 1999. The company has experienced a dramatic decline in assets under management over the past year, primarily due to an error in one of the company’s investment algorithms. Working closely under the company’s global chief operating officer, I gained a true sense of how AXA Rosenberg is in the process of changing its investment strategies, internal structures, and client relationships to effectively stay in business. Given the current economic climate and various internal factors, my internship was
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