Award Recipient– Best Teaching Assistant Award

Smith Williams

Smith Williams is a Ph. D. candidate and will be on the job market this year. Smith entered UC Irvine’s graduate program in economics after working in several policy focused non-profits in Washington, DC. Her fields of research include labor economics, political economy, public economics, and applied econometrics.

Smith is currently conducting a behavioral experiment that explores the effects of providing relative performance information on the differences in competitive choices between males and females that have been found in prior laboratory experiments. She has received funding support for this work from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UCLA.

Smith has also written two papers that use distinct empirical strategies to examine the determinants of the minimum wage. One uses the variation resulting from an increasing number of states choosing to adopt state minimum wages that exceed the federal level since 1985 in a panel data model. The paper examines whether unions affect state minimum wage levels. The other uses votes from a 1996 California ballot initiative proposing an increase in the state minimum wage to explore whether minimum wage workers favor the policy.

Smith has served as a teaching assistant for economics courses of all levels during her graduate career. In recognition of the quality of her instruction, the Department of Economics recently honored Smith with “The Best Teaching Assistant Award” and she has also received teaching commendations from the Dean of Social Sciences. Smith is interested in teaching courses on labor economics, public policy, applied econometrics, and introductory and intermediate microeconomics.

In her spare time, Smith enjoys cycling, swimming, and yoga. She also enjoys teaching her cats new tricks, going to the movies and music concerts.