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Summer Research Program 2024

Ready to put your economics education to work?

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The Department of Economics is excited to announce our Summer Research Project for the upcoming year! Selected students will have collaborate with a faculty member on a research project during the summer months. Eligible participants will receive a $500 scholarship award in the Fall semester, along with a Certificate of Completion upon finishing the project.

Eligibility: Rising seniors and juniors in Economics will have priority in the matching process, with class level determining final selection. Each project listed below outlines the necessary skills and abilities required for successful completion.

Please note that due to financial aid regulations or immigration laws, some students may not be eligible for the scholarship award but are still encouraged to participate on a voluntary basis.

Application:  Take a look at the available project options and select up to three that align with your interests and skills. Complete the online application using your VT PID, accessible through the link below. You will also be asked to upload a resume (PDF) and your unofficial transcript.

All applications must be completed by 5:00 PM on Tuesday, April 30.

Click HERE to Apply

Project Opportunities :

Project Title: Evaluating the Impact of State-Funded Voucher Programs on the Compsition of Students in Private Schools
Professor:  Brianna Felegi (E-mail)
Brief description:



The goal of this project is to understand how the adoption of state-funded private school voucher programs alters the composition of students attending private schools along race, income, and achievement dimensions. Using data from the National Center of Education Statistics’ Private School Universe Survey, the research assistant will create a national dataset that tracks changes in enrollment in private schools. Additionally, the research assistant will gather data on which states have instituted private school voucher programs to allow for the comparison across states with and without these programs. I hope that by completing this project, the research assistant will have a greater understanding of how private school voucher programs operate in the United States, how they’ve impacted the educational landscape of participating states and whether changes in enrollment composition have translated to impacts on the number and types of teachers working in private schools.


Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set:
Have taken ECON 3254 / ECON 4304 and/or is comfortable using computer software to perform data analysis (Stata (most preferred), R or Python)


Project Title: 
Changes in US Semiconductor Production in the Context of Global Value Chain Transformation
Professor:  Suqin Ge (E-mail)
Brief description:



Semiconductor chips are the brains of modern electronics. The semiconductor industry was valued at $526.8 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $1.21 trillion by 2029 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.86%. Even though the US remains the leader in designing chips, the manufacturing or fabrication of most logic and memory chips has pivoted towards East Asia since the 2010s. In fact, East Asia has already accounted for over 80 percent of worldwide integrated circuits (IC) fabrication capacity. As the global value chain transforms, the US should implement streamlined regulatory processes, targeted investments in research and development, and strategic partnerships with industry leaders to accelerate its IC industry and enhance its competitive position. To achieve this overarching goal, it is imperative to understand the dynamics and future trends of the semiconductor industry. Therefore, in this project, we aim to develop a comprehensive model of the US semiconductor industry and create a predictive model for the future geography and capacity of the semiconductor industry.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required Skill Set:
Data Analytics, Time Management, Attention to Details
 
Project Title: Integrating Neural Networks into Statistical Testing
Professor:  Ali Habibnia (E-mail)
Brief description:



The rapid advancement in machine learning, particularly in neural networks, presents a unique opportunity to develop innovative statistical tests that could enhance the robustness and accuracy of data analysis across various scientific domains. This research aims to design and validate new statistical tests based on neural networks, specifically focusing on problems where traditional methods falter due to assumptions about data distribution or the presence of high-dimensional spaces. We will begin by exploring how neural networks can model complex, nonlinear relationships in datasets to perform hypothesis testing and parameter estimation. Key phases will include the literature review for related works and development of the tests, followed by simulation studies to compare their performance against traditional statistical methods.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set:

Intermediate Python programming and time series analysis

Project Title:  Altruism and Health Externalities from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Professor: Xu Lin (E-mail)
Brief description:


Altruism arises when the payoff of other people becomes a factor in an individual’s utility function. Many experimental and field studies show that people are altruistic instead of selfish. Social preferences such as altruism facilitate cooperative behaviors in a society and the internalization of various externalities, including the unprecedented health externalities generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Altruistic Individuals care about the infection risk of their peers and internalize the consequences of their actions, thus may help flatten the infection curve. This project plans to investigate the interplay of altruism, social interactions, health externalities and public health policy interventions during the outbreak and development of the pandemic. In this 2-month summer project, we would like to hire a research assistant to collect the relevant individual and regional GPS tracking mobility and health related data, at various levels including county/city, MSA and country levels.
Work Location:  May work Remotely
Required skill set:
Excel - Required
Stata - Preferred
Project Title: Financial Calculators Project
Professor: Mark Liu (E-mail)
Brief description:

Most personal finance decisions can be reduced into calculators. This summer project will center around the creation of such calculators. The student will work on creating calculation spreadsheets on Excel on various financial scenarios: mortgage loans, mortgage refinance, retirement planning, educational finance and return, etc. A successful candidate to work on this project will need strong analytical & quantitative skills along with a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel. Preference will be given to those with computer programming backgrounds.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set: Strong analytical, quantitative and Excel skills
Project Title: The Biological Standard of Living and Communal Property Ownership:  Evidence from the Amana Society of Iowa
Professor: Melinda Miller (E-mail)
Brief description:

In economies with private property and limited redistribution, people may choose to opt into intentional or utopian communities to pursue economic equality. The Community of True Inspiration, which was incorporated as the Amana Society of Iowa from 1859 until 1932, is notable for the duration of its commitment to a communal way of life. They separated themselves from the broader market economy while practicing traditional handicrafts and farming, operating several mills, dining in communal kitchens, and disavowing private property. Amana provides a unique opportunity to study the standard of living in a communal society that existed within the broader market economy. Documenting the standard of living during Amana’s communal era is difficult, and this project will focus on the biological standard of living to better understand Amana’s economic status. The heights and weights of men born in Amana and Iowa will be collected from the World War II Fourth Registration, more commonly known as the “Old Man’s Draft.” Although this data is partially entered, a research assistant will focus on preparing the data for analysis.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set:
Excel

Project Title:  Meta-analysis of the Use of Incentives in Experimental Economics
Professor: Alec Smith (E-mail)
Brief description:


This project will study the use of incentives in economics experiments over time. It will involve a literature search to systematically identify an appropriate set of studies from the literature. After the choice of an inclusion criterion, this set of studies will be used to construct a dataset with measures of effect size and covariates. The researcher will then analyze the dataset to look for changes in the use and effect of incentives over time in laboratory experiments. At the conclusion of the research project the student will prepare a research report with preliminary results.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set: 
Familiarity with experimental economics, data analysis, and literature review.
Project Title: Network Externalities and #econtwitter
Professor:  Byron Tsang (E-mail)
Brief description: 
In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter, and numerous economists who were active on Twitter expressed the intention to leave the platform. We will show how network effects, i.e., the more people are using the platform the more utility it brings, essentially stopped the “exodus” of economists from happening. We will study how traffics among economists changed around that time, and we will also look at how economists were connected to each other through comments or retweets on Twitter.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set:
Python and Econometrics


Project Title: The Impact of Conference Realignment on Academic Performance
Professor: Jadrian Wooten (E-mail)
Brief description:


This study aims to examine the impact of conference realignment on the academic performance of student-athletes. Specifically, it seeks to understand how the shift from regional to cross-country conferences affects athletes' academic outcomes over time. This research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how changes in conference structure influence the academic experiences of student-athletes, informing policies and support systems to enhance their overall well-being and success.
Work Location: May work Remotely
Required skill set:


- Comfortable reading academic articles
- Familiarity with Google Docs & Sheets
- Strong organizational skills
- Keen attention to detail