Spotlighted student: Jeanna Kenney '16
Going to a small college close to her home town of Wallingford, Pennsylvania was paramount to Jeanna Kenney ’16. She was impressed with Haverford’s Honor Code and self-governance framework as well as its vigorous academics.
Going to a small college close to her home town of Wallingford, Pennsylvania was paramount to Jeanna Kenney ’16. She was impressed with Haverford’s Honor Code and self-governance framework as well as its vigorous academics.
After taking Advanced Placement exams in micro and macroeconomics and relishing its practical applications, Jeanna wanted to further explore economics in college. She has a particular affinity for mathematics and will graduate with a major in economics and a concentration in mathematical economics.
Her thesis will explore spatial impacts on price competition in the housing market. Specifically, it will investigate how one homeowner's sale price and time on the market is affected if a neighbor decides to put his/her house on the market at the same time. She predicts there will be two effects at play, a competition effect which drives the sale price down as more houses are being sold nearby, and an increased traffic effect, which would decrease time spent on the market by reducing search costs for the buyer. Ideally, her model will be able to predict the magnitudes of these two effects and provide insight into the costs and benefits to individual sellers of multiple listings in their area.
Jeanna has gained experience applying economics outside of school through her summer internships. The summer after her freshman year she worked for economics Professor Anne Preston extracting, compiling and organizing data from previously administered experiments. Jeanna also produced literature reviews.
After her sophomore year she spent the summer working at the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia where she researched foreclosure laws, executed data management, and performed STATA coding and running STATA models.
She spent this past summer working in Philadelphia at Glenmede Trust Company, an investment and wealth management firm. She analyzed the strategies and financial performances of externally contracted managers.
Post-graduation, Jeanna would like to develop her research skills with a job as a research assistant. After a few years of employment she plans to attend graduate school to earn a PhD in economics with an end goal of becoming a Professor of economics and focusing research on consumer credit and real estate economics.
Jeanna plays defensive specialist on the volleyball team and is one of the captains. She is President of the Newman Catholic Society whose Haverford membership has tripled in the past few years.
