TAMIU Students Win Top Awards at 30th Annual Western Hemispheric Trade Conference

Three Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) International Business Administration doctoral students and three undergraduate Business students won cash prizes for the Best Student Paper Award and Honorable Mentions at the 30th Annual Western Hemispheric Trade (WHT) Conference, recently hosted both virtually and in person by TAMIU's A. R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business.

The Best Student Paper Award went to Ayman Samak and Anthony Izuagie, two doctoral students. They won a $400 prize for their paper titled, “The Intangible Costs of Corporate Litigation.”

The first Honorable Mention Award went to Moses Abu, a doctoral student. His paper is titled, “Harvesting Disadvantage: Quantifying Trade Diversion in U.S. Agricultural Machinery under the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement." He won a $100 cash award.

The Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award went to Zitabell Rodriguez Vaca for her paper titled, “Do Institutions Matter for International Investment? An Empirical Examination of Firm-Level Asset Allocation.” She won a $200 prize.

The first Undergraduate Student Honorable Mention Award went to David Martinez Parra for his paper titled, “Concentrated vs. Diversified Economy: The Impact of External Shocks. Las Vegas Case Study.” The second went to Emiliano Fiscal for his paper titled, “The Economic Impacts of Tariff Policies on U.S.–México Trade.” Both students each won a $100 cash award.

All winners also received free registration for the 2027 WHT Conference.

A total of 98 submissions were included in the Conference program in either abstract or paper form this year.

Attracting business leaders, experts, scholars, and students from throughout the world to TAMIU, the WHT Conference presents forums for discussions on perspectives focusing on international business and economics each year. It is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade in partnership with Mexico's Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas (UAT) Facultad de Comercio, Administración y Ciencias Sociales and Universidad Tecnológica de Tamaulipas Norte.

Keynote speakers included Peter S. Goodman, Global Economics Correspondent for The New York Times, and Dr. Wei-Ling Song, the Charles Clifford Cameron Professor at Louisiana State University’s E. J. Ourso College of Business. The fireside chat panel featured Dr. Silvia Gómez Ansón, Professor of Finance at the University of Oviedo in Spain, and Dr. Max S. Dolinsky, Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of the Finance Professional Development Program at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.

For more information, contact Amy Palacios, associate director, Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, at 956.326.2820 or cswht@tamiu.edu.

Additional information is available at www.tamiu.edu/cswht.

For additional information, contact the TAMIU Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade at 956.326.2820, email cswht@tamiu.edu, or visit www.tamiu.edu/cswht.

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