Meet Ramzee Nwokolo

Ramzee joined the Initiative in July 2024, following three years as a research assistant with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. While at the Chicago Fed, Ramzee focused primarily on finance and insurance markets, supported the Bank and the Board of Governors on public-facing policy reports, and authored “How FAIR Plans Confronted Redlining in America” (Chicago Fed Letter No. 484, September 2023).

Ramzee received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from Howard University in 2021, with a double minor in Mathematics and Psychology. At Howard, Ramzee published “Breaking Even: Consumption Inequality in the Divided States of America” in Ukweli: the Howard University Undergraduate Research Journal (2020).

While an undergraduate, Ramzee also participated in the AEA Summer Training Program (Michigan State, 2020), where he received the Marie Mora Citizenship Award and co-authored a working paper, “Returns to Class: the expected returns of parental wealth endowments on a child’s future income”. He also completed an internship in economic valuations with KPMG Los Angeles (2019).

Ramzee has contributed to helping others find their way to the economics profession through his involvement with “Exploring Career Pathways in Economics and Related Fields” (September 2021–2023), a conference presented by the Chicago Fed and the Sadie Collective.

Entrance Interview: Economics in His Own Words

 I took my first economics class as a senior in high school. Ms. Boye-Doe did a great job of presenting economics as a field devoted to solving social problems, and I was enamored with the idea of it. I’d decided the year prior that I didn’t want to go into the medical field, but I still wanted to help people in meaningful ways, and economics truly resonated with me as the right path forward. That fall, I declared an economics major on all of my college applications.

“Later, at Howard University, in Dr. Perkins’ Economic Development class, we read this paper by Nathan Nunn and Leonard Wantchekon, and this largely inspired my research interests in cultural & development economics. I was shocked to see that economists investigated these types of questions, and I knew then that I wanted to be part of these research-based conversations within the discipline of economics.”

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Why the Excellence Initiative?

  I joined the Ph.D. Excellence Initiative to become a great economist. For me, the Initiative represents the chance of a lifetime. I am grateful for the opportunity to strengthen my quantitative background and engage with the academic community at Stanford, all under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Blair Henry. This program and his guidance are offering me the preparation I need to confidently start a PhD in economics.”

Ramzee’s long-term career goals include producing and publishing research that helps shed light on the role that social norms and group beliefs play in the economic decision-making of individuals, as well as how these factors develop (or stagnate) markets and economies. He hopes to have this research inform how to shape societies globally to be both efficient and equitable, and thus contribute to policies designed to create such outcomes.