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Nicc Forster-Benson

PhD Student, Sociology & Social Policy, Harvard University
Research Interests: Political economy, markets and inequality, financialization, methodology

I am an incoming Sociology & Social Policy PhD student at Harvard University. Broadly, my research investigates how various market structures and interventions affect economic inequalities at both the local and global scale.

Currently, my research focuses on U.S. housing markets, examining the intersection of local politics, financialization, liquidity, and inequality. Another strand of my work focuses on underdevelopment, utilizing nation-level heterogeneity in trade flows and macro-economic indicators to better understand post-colonial commodity dependence and natural resource exploitation in the global south.

I hold a BA in Economics and Quantitative Social Science (interdisciplinary) from Vanderbilt University. I was raised and educated in Nashville, Tennessee, but I have also lived in Uppsala, Chicago, Milan, and Boston. In my spare time, I am a pick-up basketball enthusiast and part-time 3-point specialist.

Research

GitHub

Broadly, my research investigates how various market structures and interventions effect economic inequalities at both the local and global scale. I have worked under the mentorship of both Dr. Karim Nchare (VU Economics) and Dr. Richard Lloyd (VU Sociology) navigating the complexities of formal economic modeling in relation to the socially-temporally contingent nature of economic phenomenon.

In my honors thesis, I applied causal inference methods from econometrics, taking advantage of a quasi-experimental policy design to estimate heterogeneous market segment effects of upzoning on housing prices in Nashville. In another strand of research, I analyzed trade relationships between Portugal and its former African colonies from 1960–2022, providing quantitative evidence for the persistence of colonial commodity dependence and natural resource exploitation.

Teaching

ECON 1500 Economic Statistics, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2024
Vanderbilt University, Department of Economics — Syllabus
Set theory, probability, random variables, inference and regression analysis.
SOC 3233 Contemporary American Society, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Vanderbilt University, Department of Sociology — Syllabus
Changes in political economy, geography, and social class stratification in the United States (1940s-present).
SOC 3202 Cultural Production and Institutions, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2023
Vanderbilt University, Department of Sociology — Syllabus
Examining the production of art and authenticity within various art fields, from the production of drill music to 15th-century Italian painting.

Contact

✉️ nforsterbenson@g.harvard.edu

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