Masterclass Students

Renira Corinne Angeles is a visiting PhD student at the European Institute. Her doctoral project investigates the political economy of top executive compensation. More specifically, she is looking at impact of trade unions, wage bargaining and government partisanship. Adding to this, she also research the connection of top executive compensation and equal/unequal political representation.

Masterclass project: Politics, corporate governance, inequality and top executive compensation across European countries.

Wilson Guzman is an Ecuadorian national currently studying a PhD in Social Policy. He holds a MSc in Development Economics from FLACSO-Quito and MSc in Development Studies from LSE. Before coming to LSE he studied a pros-graduate in Econometrics at Birkbeck University. His research projects are: 1) The Effects of the National Minimum Wage law, and its increased enforcement, on wages and employment in Ecuador; and 2) The National Minimum Wage and Earnings Inequality in Ecuador.

Katharina Hecht is a third year doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at LSE. Her main research interests relate to income and wealth inequality, particularly at the top of the distribution, and inequalities of social class, gender and ethnicity. Her PhD thesis investigates top incomes and wealth in the UK and how they are perceived by individuals situated at the top end of the income distribution. Her main data sources include qualitative interviews and data from the Great British Class Survey and Understanding Society, the UK household longitudinal study.

Masterclass project: Economic inequality between individuals at the top of the income and wealth distributions, social comparisons and perceptions of top income and wealth.

Felix Koenig: I am a PhD student in the Department of Economics and the CEP. My primary research interests is in labour economics. I am fascinated by wage and career determinants and by the effect of technology of the workplace.

Masterclass project: I analyse why top income has been rising rapidly across many countries. A popular hypothesis is that increasing market integration has allowed professional 'superstars' to capture a larger share of the global market (Rosen, 1981). My project seeks to find the causal impact of this superstar effect on top wage inequality. The study uses exogenous changes to broadcasting reach of professional soccer teams and analyses how different quality teams can capitalise on the changing market size. 

Laura Kudrna: Laura is a third year doctoral candidate in the Department of Social Policy funded by an LSE Studentship. She holds a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Research Methodology. Her thesis investigates the relationships of absolute and relative socio-economic status with subjective wellbeing using the American Time Use Survey and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Masterclass project: how best to conceptualise and measure relative socio-economic status according to those with 'top' incomes and wealth.

Panos Mavrokonstantis: I am a PhD student in the Department of Economics and STICERD. My research interests lie in the fields of public and labour economics, with a particular focus on inequality.

Masterclass project: examinng inequality of opportunity in the UK, and propose an extension of the Piketty & Saez (2013) optimal taxation approach in order to quantify the degree of fairness in the UK tax system.

Chrysoula Papalexatou is a second year PhD candidate at the European Institute. Her research project investigates the links between currency unification and economic inequality in the Euro area. Her main research interests are wealth inequality, income inequality, monetary policy and monetary integration.

Masterclass project: Asymmetries in monetary policy transmission and inequality in the EMU: The case of housing bubbles.

Nathalie Picarelli is a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography and Environment. Her research areas are urban and development economics, and her projects focus on understanding the relationship between city structures and inequality. Currently, she is working on South African cities evaluating low-cost housing subsidies and their effect on labour market participation.

Masterclass project: Understanding the effect of segregation on entry into the labour market for young adults in the Cape Town metro area.

David Schafer is a 3rd year PhD candidate at the International Relations Department. He is interested in the politics of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the drivers of economic policy. His dissertation research is on the creation of the EU banking union and, more specifically, the impact of ideas on the member state preferences and the interstate negotiations.

Masterclass project: analysing the impact of ideas on economic policies during the euro zone crisis.

Rebecca Simson is a third year PhD candidate in the Department of Economic History. Her thesis examines the impact of public employment and pay on labour markets in postcolonial Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Prior to studying at LSE she worked in the international development field, primarily on public sector reform and economic management issues.

Masterclass project: a paper on the effects of the large falls in public sector salaries in many African countries in the 1970s – 1990s on income inequality. 

Kate Summers is in her second year of an ESRC funded PhD in the Department of Social Policy. Her research looks at how working age social security recipients in the UK conceive of, and use, money they receive in the form of social security payments.

Masterclass project: looking specifically at the significance of language and terminology used by policymakers, with particular reference to the incoming Universal Credit payment and the outgoing system it is replacing.

Carol Thanki is examining how political parties respond to changes in income inequality and how party spatial dynamics affect voter apathy among certain income groups and class voting.

Lisa Windsteiger is a PhD Student in Economics. In her research she examines the relationship between segregation, inequality, biased perceptions of the income distribution and preferences for redistribution.