Spotlighted Student: Brianna Groh '15
Tucson, Arizona native Brianna Groh '15 was flipping through a daunting ‘what college is right for you' book. Rather than go through the book front to back, she let the book open where it would naturally fall. It landed on H. As she finished the paragraphs on Harvard University, she turned the page and started reading about Haverford College. She liked what she read about its culture, the Honor Code, its excellent academic reputation with a communal learning environment, its small size, and its proximity to Philadelphia. After flying to the East Coast and visiting twelve colleges in six days, Haverford College still stood out. She decided to apply early decision.
In her Tucson high school Brianna had taken a government class. What grabbed her attention in that class was the visual component of the graphs and spatial awareness used in the segment on economics. And with her aptitude for mathematics, she relates to how math is applied in economics. As she entered college Brie knew economics courses would be core in her curriculum because she enjoys the challenge of thinking through problems and examining how variables work together and against each other. Some of the courses that have strongly resonated include Macroeconomic Analysis and Empirical Macroeconomics, both with former visitor Biswajit Banerjee.
Internships have played an important role in Brie's scholarly career. The summer following her sophomore year, Brie was a Whitehead Internship Program recipient to work at Maxsa Innovations in Fairfax, VA, a company founded by alumnus Skip West '77. Housed in the marketing department, Brie worked with inventory, returns and did some statistical research on re-gifting trends.
The following summer she worked for Aberdeen Asset Management in Philadelphia in their Funds of Funds group. While there Brie learned about diversification of assets, evaluating new funds, and performing equity cross-analyses.
For her thesis in Economics Brie will be looking at corporate inversion, a term relating to when a company reincorporates abroad to avoid high U.S. corporate tax rates. Inverters are able to pay lower corporate tax rates on foreign goods, and sometimes shift expenses to the U.S. subsidiary lowering taxable U.S. net income. This practice is called 'earnings stripping'. Brie will compare the financial figures of three groups of companies: those with less than 20% foreign ownership; 20-50% foreign ownership; and more than 50% foreign ownership. She will look to see if the effective tax rates paid by the groups differ significantly from one another. Using data from the IRS and aggregate financial statements of inverted firms, Brie will look at the profitability of the different companies across the three groups within industries. A significantly lower net income, specifically within an industry, could be the result of earnings stripping a firm with foreign legal residencies compared to its domestic counterpart.
Brie will matriculate with a major in Economics from Haverford College and a minor in Statistics at Bryn Mawr College. She has accepted a two year Graduate Business Analyst position in Aberdeen's Graduate Development Program. She will embark on three to four month rotations in different internal business teams and locations. As part of their integrative training process, she may also have the opportunity to be placed in one of their offices in the United Kingdom, Asia, or Australia.
Brie plays on the women's Ultimate Frisbee team (Division III Nationals third place finalists!), is a member of Ford's Against Boredom, and is currently serving on the Economics Tenure-line Search Committee. She is also the Senior Class Representative for Students' Council.
