Schloss Prize for Excellence in Economics
Mr. Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss, 1976 graduate from Tulane University and member of the Board of Tulane, has endowed the Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss Prize for Excellence in Economics. “The Schloss Prize is to be offered to outstanding full professors, associate professors, or assistant professors, or graduate or undergraduate students, who do outstanding work in the Department of Economics.”
Mr. Schloss has had a distinguished career in the financial services industry. Following his 1976 graduation from Tulane, he earned an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania in 1978. He then joined Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in 1978 as an investment banker, and during his 22 years at DLJ rose to become Chairman of DLJ’s Merchant Banking Division. Upon the acquisition of DLJ by Credit Suisse in 2000, he became the Global Head of CSFB Private Equity. In 2010 he was appointed New York City's Deputy Comptroller for Pensions and the Chief Investment Officer and Trustee of the New York City pension funds, whose assets grew from $100 billion to $145 billion under his leadership. He was named 2012 CIO of The Year – Large Public Pension Funds by Institutional Investor.
The 2021-2022 recipients of the Lawrence M. v. D. Schloss Prize for Excellence in Economics are Elliott Isaac and Patrick Testa. They will each receive a cash award of $2500.
Both Elliott and Pat have made outstanding contributions across the board--in research, teaching, and service.
Elliott published three articles during 2021-22, in the Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Labor Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics. Two of these involve his ongoing work on the taxation of same-sex couples. The third is related to effects of college selectivity. Elliott has also been an excellent co-chair of the department's seminar series.
Pat published articles in the AEA Papers and Proceedings on the exodus of Southern whites (part of a series he's working on with co-authors) and another in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization on spatial economic shocks. Pat has also been very ably leading the Econ lunch seminar series, which has added so much to the department.
Elliott and Pat also bring a great deal to our students. Our undergraduates give them among the highest ratings of anyone in the department and extol how supportive and clear they are in the classroom. Pat has also been helping guide our undergraduates to internships and job opportunities. And both Pat and Elliott have been heavily involved in the PhD program.
More details on Elliott and Patricks’s activities can be found on their Department of Economics websites, at https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/departments/economics/people/elliott-isaac and https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/departments/economics/people/patrick-testa.
The Department of Economics is very grateful to Mr. Schloss for his generous and ongoing support, which has made possible the recognition of Stefano’s accomplishments. Previous Schloss Prize winners are Marco Castaneda (2009), Jay Shimshack (2010), Stefano Barbieri (2011), Keith Finlay and Douglas Nelson (2012), Alan Barreca and Jon Pritchett (2013), Doug Harris (2014), Sean Higgins (2014), James Alm (2015), Nora Lustig (2016), Jon Pritchett (2017), Patrick Button and Ali Enami (2018), Wei Long (2019), Antonio Bojanic (2020), LaPorchia Collins (2020), Toni Weiss (2020) and Stefano Barbieri (2021).