Education

Ph.D. Economics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2006 – present (expected May 2010)

Dissertation: Essays on Private Pensions and Workers’ Savings Behavior

Committee Members: Peter Gottschalk (co-chair), Shannon Seitz (co-chair), Alicia Munnell

M.A. Economics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, December 2005

B.A. Economics and Business Administration, Minor in Mathematics, Honors in Economics, Magna cum Laude, American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, May 2004

College of Economics and Business Administration, Major: Economics, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2000

Fields of Interest

Labor Economics, Applied Econometrics, Applied Microeconomics, Pension Economics and Retirement.

Awards, Honors and Scholarships

H. Michael Mann Summer Fellowship Award, Boston College, 2008

Center for Retirement Research Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, 2007-2008

Greeley Summer Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, 2007

Tuition Remission Scholarship, Stipend and Fellowship, Boston College, 2004 to present

Global Supplementary Grant, Open Society Institute, 2004

Starr Foundation Grant, American University in Bulgaria, 2001-2004

Academic Excellence Scholarship, American University in Bulgaria, 2001-2004.

Academic Excellence Scholarship, Sofia University, 2000

Research Experience

Center for Retirement Research, Boston College

·     Graduate Research Assistant, Summer 2005, 2006, 2007, Fall 2008- Spring 2009, Fall 2009

Department of Economics, Boston College

·     Research Assistant, Prof. Shannon Seitz, Summer 2006

·     Research Assistant, Prof. Christopher Baum, Fall 2004

Bulgarian National Bank

·     Intern, Division of Economic Analysis, Summer 2004

    Teaching Experience

Boston College, Department of Economics

·     Instructor, “Principles of Microeconomics”, Fall 2007

·     Teaching Assistant to Richard Tresch, “Principles of Macroeconomics”, Spring 2007 & 2008

·     Instructor, “Math Review Session for new Economics PhD students”, August 2006, 2007

·     Teaching Assistant, “Graduate Microeconomic Theory I”, Fall 2006

·     Teaching Assistant, “Graduate Microeconomic Theory I and II”, 2005/2006

·     Teaching  Assistant to Christopher Baum, “Econometric Methods”, Spring 2005

American University in Bulgaria

·     Teaching Assistant, “Business Statistics”, 2001-2004

Working Papers

“Evaluating the Wage-Pension Trade-Off  in a Dynamic Model of Search and Savings” (Job Market Paper)

Munnell, Alicia H., Steven A. Sass, Alex Golub-Sass and Nadia Karamcheva. 2009. “Unusual Social Security Claiming Strategies: Costs and Distributional Effects.” Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research, WP#2009-17

Work in Progress

“Growing Pension Inequality: Consequences of the Pension Type Shift” (with Geoffrey Sansenbacher)

“Private Pensions: Compensating Wage Differentials"

Research Briefs

Karamcheva, Nadia and Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, 2009. “Is Pension Inequality Growing?” Issues in Brief, Center for Retirement Research (forthcoming).

Munnell, Alicia H., Alex Golub-Sass and Nadia Karamcheva. 2009. “Strange But True: Claim and Suspend” Issues in Brief, Center for Retirement Research, IB#9-11.

Munnell, Alicia H., Alex Golub-Sass and Nadia Karamcheva. 2009. “Strange But True: Claim Social Security Now, Claim More Later” Issues in Brief, Center for Retirement Research,IB#9-9.

Munnell, Alicia H., Alex Golub-Sass and Nadia Karamcheva. 2009. “Strange but True: Free Loan from Social Security” Issues in Brief, Center for Retirement Research, IB#9-6.

Karamcheva, Nadia and  Alicia H. Munnell, 2007. "Why Are Widows So Poor?" Issues in Brief, Center for Retirement Research, IB#7-9.

Conference Presentations

Green Line Macroeconomics Meeting, Boston College and Boston University, October 2009

Institute on Computational Economics, University of Chicago, August 2009

11th IZA European Summer School in Labor Economics, May 2008

Dissertation Workshop, Boston College, Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008

  Affiliations

Center for Retirement Research, Boston College

IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Germany

Refereeing Activity

The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics

LABOUR: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations

Computer Skills

·       Software: Fortran, MPI – parallel programming, STATA, Matlab, Mathematica, LaTeX, SPSS, Eviews, HTML, MS Office

·       Datasets: HRS (including restricted data), PSID, CPS, SCF, IPUMPS

Other Information

·       Languages: Bulgarian – native, English – fluent, German – basic

DISSERTATION COMMITTE

Professor Peter Gottschalk

Boston College

Department of Economics

Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA
tel: 617.552.4517
fax: 617.552.2308
email: peter.gottschalk@bc.edu  

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE

Professor Richard Tresch

Boston College

Department of Economics

Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA
tel: 617.552.3671
fax: 617.552.2308
email: tresch@bc.edu  

Assistant Professor Shannon Seitz

Boston College

Department of Economics
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA
tel: 617.552.6042
fax: 617.552.2308
email: shannon.seitz@bc.edu

Peter F. Drucker Professor
of Management Sciences

Alicia Munnell
Boston College
Carroll School of Management

Center for Retirement Research

tel:617.552.1934

fax: 617.552.0191

email: munnell@bc.edu