The Arthur Hosios Scholarship in Economics is one of the Department of Economics’ most prestigious awards. Named in honour of the late Professor Arthur Hosios, the scholarship is awarded to the authors of an original research paper submitted as course work for a 300 or 400 level Economics course.
Applicants for the scholarship see their work evaluated for its originality and presentation. Up to two awards are made each year, one for the winning paper and one for the runner up. This year, three recent alumni will be recognized with this scholarship for work completed in their fourth year of studies.
Yunfei (Kevin) Wang is the winner of the Hosios Award for 2024-25. He won’t be able to attend the Undergraduate Awards of Excellence in Economics ceremony on March 4, 2026. The Innis College Alumnus is now in California where he is a pre-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Wang’s award-winning paper, Racial Divisions and Traffic Stops was inspired by a paper that showed the level of punitiveness in a judicial system can be related to the racial heterogeneity of a county.
“Because judicial officials are locally elected, racial preferences and biases might shape outcomes,” Wang explained. “Counties that are more racially heterogeneous tend to have more punitive systems. I tried to bring that idea into the traffic‑stop environment.”
The paper, completed as part of his ECO499 Honours Essay course with Professor Gustavo Bobonis, Wang looked at the traffic stops made by police in the United States to see if there are patterns related to racial heterogeneity. [Read more…]
