Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)
The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience at Carthage offers students in all majors the opportunity to engage in collaborative full-time research with professors. Students work closely with faculty mentors on a new or developing line of research.
2019 Economics SURE Participants
Zoe Hobbs ’21
Project: Comparing and Mapping Rooftop Solar Incentives Across the U.S.
Mentor: Prof. Erik Johnson
Zoe gathered data on state-wide and local financial incentives offered for the construction of solar panels for both residential and commercial cases. Once the data was collected, it was organized into comparable terms ($/watt). Then, using the data, she created an interactive map to display the differences in total incentives across states and also differences in solar density (the solar capacity in an area normalized to the population). These maps helped us begin to look at the relationship between incentives and capacity to see if they actually worked, and what kinds of incentives work better than others.
Riley Peterson ’21
Project: The Effect of Federal Government Shutdowns on Health
Mentor: Prof. Cassie Lau
Riley’s project began as an examination of the effect of the government shutdown on health, primarily looking at increased visits to emergency rooms and loss of funding for programs like WIC and food stamps. This avenue of research was not fruitful for a number of reasons, so Riley began examining the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. healthcare system. She will continue this work for her senior thesis, and will compare the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. system with other countries’ healthcare systems.
Senior Thesis
Every student who graduates from Carthage with a major in economics must complete a substantial research work or project. Students work on this senior thesis with a directing professor, and it counts as an economics course (ECN 4400: Senior Seminar and History of Economic Thought).
Here’s a look at past projects by Carthage economics majors:
- An Examination of the Economic Impact of Defined Thresholds in Public Policy — Dan Chambers
- The Economics of Food Aid and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa — Katie Niemeyer
- An Analysis of Intergenerational Economic Mobility — TJ Hedin
- The Determinants of Software Piracy — Mike Fitzgerald
- Private For-Profit Influence on Student Loan Defaults and Graduation —Jillian Burnickas
- A Study of Exchange Rate Regimes: Managed vs. Free Floating — James Blakeway
- Economic Rationality or Irrationality: The Case of the National Football League — Nathan Giebel
- On the Determinants of Emigration: The Effects of Wealth on Push Factors — Sebastian Jacinto
- The Effect of Wealth on Health in the United States — Ryan Lindsay
- The Market Value Effect of Sponsoring the FIFA World Cup — Matt Logue
- Determinants of Effective Access to Education by Women in Sub-Saharan Africa — Mary Mutindi Mutua
- The Impact of Interstate and Intrastate Conflict on Human Capital and Economic Growth — Katie Schlinder
- No Teacher Left Behind: An Analysis of Teacher Turnover in the U.S. — Allison von Borstel
- The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment: A Firm-Level Study Using a New Dataset — Tony Walek