This summer I worked at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the Applied Research and Methods team, which was further subdivided into different centers (I was in the Center for Economics). With CE, I worked on two main projects: terrorism risk reinsurance and competition in the international airline industry. Terrorism risk reinsurance refers to the insurance that is offered to insurance companies following a terrorist attack. Currently, terrorism risk insurance is provided by the federal government. Our project was to evaluate the financial risk this policy poses to the American taxpayer. I assisted with the literature review and provided support on modeling different terror events.

In the airline competition project, we evaluated the recent claims of anticompetitive subsidies to Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, and Emirates Airline. In this project I was responsible for finding relevant reports (which came out of top consulting firms continuously over the summer), reading them, and recommending the most relevant ones to my supervisor. I also prepped a presentation, which I later helped present to the executive board of the GAO. This was a fantastic opportunity. I very much enjoyed my time at the GAO and value the connections I made there.