Research

Undergraduate

Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to both contribute to PWBM research as well as conduct independent public policy research. Students aid PWBM research by compiling and cleaning data for PWBM models as well as PWBM data visualizations. PWBM also provides mentorship to students in conducting research and gives them a platform to publish their findings.

Graduate

PWBM currently sponsors graduate students in both the Applied Mathematics & Computational Science Graduate Group and the Economics Department of the School of Arts & Sciences. In addition to contributing directly to the modeling capabilities of our major model components, PWBM graduate students help us tackle issues on the forefront of research. Projects include the implementation of swarm calibration functionality in an overlapping generations (OLG) model as well as the development of a carbon OLG modeled with uncertainty that utilizes a GPU parallel computing algorithm and neural network.

Events on Campus

Trending Topics

PWBM hosts discussions on the biggest policy questions currently facing our nation's policymakers. These events allow students to better understand these complex issues and some of the factors to consider when evaulating policy.

PWBM also holds a monthly seminar open to anyone, where researchers discuss their findings and some of the cutting-edge computational and modeling techniques being used in macroeconomic research today. All seminars are either presented at or simulcast to our Philadelphia office and graduate-level students especially are encouraged to join.

Renowned Speakers

PWBM invites prominent figures in public policy and top experts in the field to campus to give insight into some of the complex trade-offs and decisions that go into the creation of federal policy. Students are encouraged to participate and interact with speakers to get them interested and engaged in public policy.

Student Employment

In addition to the research opportunities that PWBM provides students, PWBM allows students to directly take part in helping us achieve our mission of providing accurate, accessible and transparent economic analysis of public policy’s fiscal impact. Student workers are instrumental to PWBM and help out with such tasks as tracking legislation and putting on events. Students also get practical experience in scraping data and testing on exciting projects such as our work with USAFacts.

We encourage students interested in working with us to visit our Job Opportunities page for more information.