NARSC Graduate Student
Paper Competition
At the 2006 North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI), the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) launched the NARSC Graduate Student Paper Prize contest. This contest is now held annually in conjunction with the North American Meetings of RSAI.  This contest encourages the participation of young scholars by providing a forum for paper presentation and discussion by senior scholars in the field of regional science. Eligibility for the award is limited to current Masters and PhD students, and/or recent graduates who have completed their degrees within twelve months preceding the submission date.

Results of the first competition were announced at the 2006 annual North American meetings of RSAI held in Toronto, Ontario. Seventeen papers entered the contest and the following six finalists were selected by the review panels: Akio Kawazaki, Hua Kiefer, Thomas Light, Steven Poelhekke, Mauricio Ramirez-Grajeda, and Brenda Zhou.  The winners of the 2006 competition are Thomas Light (Cornell University) and Steven Poelhekke (European University Institute). Winners and finalists received cash and in-kind prizes. 



NARSC is pleased to announce the finalists and winners of the second NARSC Graduate Student Paper Prize contest. The 2007 contest took place in Savannah, GA, with twelve submissions and four finalists: Cristina Checherita, Sebastian Findeisen, Chen Feng Ng, and Amaya Vega. The first prize winner was Amaya Vega, University College Dublin.

Details About the 2008 NARSC Graduate Student Paper Award
The third NARSC Graduate Student Paper Award contest will be held in conjunction with the North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International in New York City, NY, November 19-22, 2008. 

Participants are asked to submit a digital copy of their paper, along with a cover letter from their supervisor. Papers should be formatted consistent with Papers in Regional Science guidelines. The deadline for submission of the complete paper is August 1, 2008, with papers reviewed by a panel of judges prior to the NARSC annual conference. The winner will be announced during the awards luncheon on November 22, 2008. All individuals who are selected as finalists will receive a cash prize. The first prize winner will receive $500. In-kind prizes will also be awarded.  The prize-winning paper will also be considered for publication in Papers in Regional Science. Because the paper will be subject to standard review procedures, publication is not guaranteed.

Those who want to submit a paper to the NARSC Graduate Student Paper Award contest can indicate this when submitting the abstract (before 1 August 2008) at the website http://www.narsc.org/conference.html and by ticking the relevant box on the abstract submission form. The full paper must be submitted in electronic form by the same date to

Bill Anderson
NARSC 2008 Program Chair
Email: narsc@meetingsavvy.com

The Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science
The Fellowship is awarded in memory of Dr. Benjamin H. Stevens, 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. Fundraising efforts to increase the Fellowship's endowment are ongoing. Donations should be sent to: The Stevens Fellowship Fund, Busey Wealth Management, P.O. Box 260, Champaign, IL 61824-0260 USA. Checks should be drawn to The Stevens Fellowship Fund.

The Stevens Fellowship is administered by a committee on behalf of the North American Regional Science Council; David Boyce serves as Secretary and Michael Lahr as Treasurer. The 2008-09 Stevens Fellowship competition was judged by a selection committee consisting of: Brigitte Waldorf, Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, chair; Edward Coulson, Economics, Penn State University; Edward Feser, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Bruce Newbold, Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University; and Cynthia Rogers, Economics, University of Oklahoma.

The Committee thanks all students who entered the competition this year, as well as their doctoral supervisors. Faculty at all North American Ph.D. programs are asked to encourage their best students to apply for the Tenth Annual Stevens Graduate Fellowship, which will support the winning student's thesis research in the field of Regional Science with a fellowship of $28,000 for the 2009-2010 year. The application deadline is February 16, 2009. Full submission guidelines may be found at http://www.narsc.org/bapp.html.

Paavo Monkkonen, a doctoral student in city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, has been selected as the winner of the Ninth Annual Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science. The Fellowship will provide a $27,000, one-year stipend to support Monkkonen in his research entitled, “Mexico’s Emerging Suburbia: Local Impacts of National Housing Finance Policy.” Paavo’s research will assess the impact of the expansion of mortgage lending on three aspects of urban development in Mexico: patterns of urban growth, the segregation and sorting of households, and the planning and regulation of land use. The research will contribute to debates over housing policy and empirically test several theories of urban economics in the context of a developing country. His research is supervised by Professor David E. Dowall of the Department of City and Regional Planning.

Since 2000, the Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science was also 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 JungWon 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)