The Stone Centre at UCL welcomes the 2026/2027 Stone PhD Scholars

The Stone Centre is delighted to welcome four new PhD students from the UCL Department of Economics as Stone PhD Scholars for the 2026/2027 academic year.

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Vrinda Anand examines why workers in developing economies sort into self-employment and informal work, focusing on how intergroup frictions — such as discrimination and segregated referral networks — can trap disadvantaged groups in low-productivity jobs and reproduce inequality.

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Graham Mazeine studies the determinants of workers' employment and wage trajectories over their careers, with a particular focus on how technological change shapes these dynamics, and the role of tax and transfer policy in improving social welfare in a frictional labour market.

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Guido Spanò studies how financial frictions and heterogeneity across households shape monetary policy transmission, and how this reshapes the distribution of income and wealth across the economy.

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Zeyi Xiao's research examines the role of risk communication in financial decision-making and its implications for wealth inequality.

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We're excited to have them join us, and will follow up with more in depth conversations with each of our new scholars in the coming weeks.

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About Stone Centre PhD Scholarships

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The Stone PhD Scholarship supports early-career researchers with academic and financial backing throughout their studies, alongside mentorship from the Stone Centre's Co-directors and its wider network of Visiting Fellows and Affiliates — part of the Centre's ongoing mission to advance research and teaching on wealth concentration and inequality.