
Economics
The goal of the Economics Department is to educate engaged citizens who understand the economic institutions they are part of and who are able to assess and develop opportunities for responsible participation and positive social change.
Research Opportunities
Economics students at Hamilton have opportunities to conduct original research either over the summer as part of the Levitt Fellows or Emerson Grant programs or during their senior year as part of the Senior Program Examples of past topics include climate finance, the labor market and the "Great Recession", and entrepreneurship among immigrants.
In addition some concentrators work during the academic year and in the summer as research assistants with faculty members, and the results of their collaborations have appeared in co-authored papers in professional journals.
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Assistant Professor of Economics Cody Couture joined the faculty last August. Here he talks about his research on the Federal Reserve and what it’s like teaching economics at a liberal arts college.
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Jeff Cross joined the faculty as an assistant professor of economics in August. He talks here about his research in environmental/energy economics, and what drew him to Hamilton.
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During this midterm election year, many Hamilton students spent the summer volunteering for candidates on a national and local level.
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After interning at the Clinton Early Learning Center this past year, economics major Noam Barnhard ’18 knew he wanted to pursue a summer opportunity involving childhood behavioral science, particularly with at-risk children.
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After developing an interest in economics as a first-year student, Zach Baker ’18 took his first job in the field with the Tioga County Industrial Development Agency, a small economic development agency in Owego, NY.
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“There came a point where I realized I knew more about the U.S. healthcare system and its issues than about the healthcare system of the country I grew up in. This seemed problematic to me especially since I hope to someday practice medicine in Morocco,” said researcher Sofia Rachad ’18.
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While falling prices at the gas pump may be a boon for everyday consumers, fluctuations in the price of gasoline can have very real consequences for nations such as Russia, the second largest exporter of oil in the world. Muhammad Najib ’18, along with Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Onur Sapci, is this summer attempting to assess the impacts that falling oil prices have had and will continue to have upon the Russia’s economy, politics and macroeconomic policy decisions.
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Derek Jones, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, and Kimberly Walker ’07 published a chapter in International Perspectives on Participation. The book is volume 15 in the series Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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With the digitization of information, cyberspace is a developing network that’s changing how we live. In 2009, the first digital currency, Bitcoin, was invented. Bitcoin has been called a “decentralized virtual currency” by some economists, due to the fact that it is transferred from one user to another, called peer-to-peer or P2P, without the use of any central bank. Sitong Chen ’16, with Professor of Economics Christophre Georges, worked this summer on an Emerson project, “Analysis of the Internet-born Currency: The Birth of Bitcoin.”
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Africa is home to some of the fastest developing economies and up-and-coming global leaders, as Ivy Phoebe Akumu ’15, an economics major, knows. This summer, Akumu is a corporate business intern with the Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd. (CBA), one of East Africa’s largest privately owned banks. Her internship is located in Upper Hill, Nairobi, Kenya, and is sponsored through the Summer Internship Support Fund.
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Contact
Department Name
Economics Department
Clinton, NY 13323