CEQ’s Ali Enami receives Schloss Prize
April 19, 2018
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
About Schloss Prize
Mr. Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss, 1976 graduate from Tulane University and member of the Board of Tulane, has endowed the Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss Prize for Excellence in Economics. “The Schloss Prize is to be offered to outstanding full professors, associate professors, or assistant professors, or graduate or undergraduate students, who do outstanding work in the Department of Economics.”
Mr. Schloss has had a distinguished career in the financial services industry. Following his 1976 graduation from Tulane, he earned an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania in 1978. He then joined Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in 1978 as an investment banker, and during his 22 years at DLJ rose to become Chairman of DLJ’s Merchant Banking Division. Upon the acquisition of DLJ by Credit Suisse in 2000, he became the Global Head of CSFB Private Equity. In 2010 he was appointed New York City’s Deputy Comptroller for Pensions and the Chief Investment Officer and Trustee of the New York City pension funds, whose assets grew from $100 billion to $145 billion under his leadership. He was named 2012 CIO of The Year – Large Public Pension Funds by Institutional Investor. Most recently, Mr. Schloss was the President of Angelo, Gordon & Co. In addition to serving on the Board of Tulane, Mr. Schloss is the Vice Chair of the New York Police and Fire Widows’ Fund and the Children’s Benefit Fund, and he has served on the boards of directors of numerous public and private companies, including Girls Who Invest.
There are two recipients of the 2017-2018 Schloss Prize. Patrick Button is the faculty recipient of the Schloss Prize for Excellence in Research. Ali Enami is the graduate student recipient of the Schloss Prize for Excellence in Research. Each will receive a cash award of $2500.
About Ali Enami
Ali Enami is a graduate student in the Department of Economics, finishing his dissertation in the Department’s doctoral program and graduating with a Ph.D. in economics. He received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from K.N. Toosi University of Technology in Iran Economics, an M.B.A. from Malek-Ashtar University of Technology in Iran, an M.A. in economics from the University of Akron, and an M.S. in economics from Tulane University. His dissertation is entitled “Analyzing the Socio-economic Impacts of Fiscal Policies: Educational Attainment, Interstate Migration, Inequality, and Poverty.”
Even with the demands of coursework and a dissertation, Ali has made outstanding research contributions. He has already published several articles, including:
* “Does Unrestricted Public School Choice Increase Racial Segregation? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in New Orleans”, in Applied Economics Quarterly
* “Do Government Subsidies to Low-income Individuals Affect Interstate Migration? Evidence from the Massachusetts Health Care Reform”, in Regional Science and Urban Economics
* “Balancing the Ticket While Appealing to the Base: The Game Theory Behind Mitt Romney’s Selection of Paul Ryan as his Presidential Running Mate”, in Party Politics
* “Do Refugee-immigrants Affect International Trade? Evidence from the World’s Largest Refugee Case”, in Journal of Policy Modeling.
Ali has also published several book chapters in Commitment to Equity Handbook – A Guide to Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty (Brookings Institution Press and CEQ Institute), edited by Nora Lustig:
* “Analytic Foundations: Measuring the Redistributive Impact of Taxes and Transfers”
* “Measuring the Redistributive Impact of Taxes and Transfers in the Presence of Reranking”
* “Measuring the Effectiveness of Taxes and Transfers in Fighting Inequality and Poverty”
* “An Application of the CEQ Effectiveness Indicators: The Case of Iran.”
Ali has a number of additional research projects underway, including several that have received grant support. He expects to continue his work on inequality and poverty with Nora Lustig, funding by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
More details on Ali’s activities can be found on his website.
The Department of Economics selection committee (Nora Lustig, Jon Pritchett, and James Alm) was unanimous in recommending that Patrick and Ali be the 2017-2018 recipients of the Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss Prize for Excellence in Economics.
The Department of Economics is very grateful to Mr. Schloss for his generous and ongoing support, which has made possible the recognition of Nora’s accomplishments. Previous Schloss Prize winners are Marco Castaneda (2009), Jay Shimshack (2010), Stefano Barbieri (2011), Keith Finlay (2012), Douglas Nelson (2012), Alan Barreca (2013), Jon Pritchett (2013), Doug Harris (2014), Sean Higgins (2014), and James Alm (2015), Nora Lustig (2016), and Jon Pritchett (2017).