Economics majors Abbie Boatwright ’19, Stan Kannegieter ’19, and Diana Trevino ’20 presented their research at the Economics Scholars Undergraduate Research Conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.  Boatwright, under the direction of Professor of Economics Dirk Early and Dr. Paul Brenner, associate director of high-performance computing at the University of Notre Dame, presented her research on the link between intellectual-property protections and patenting, “Global Innovation and Intellectual-Property Rights.” Kannegieter presented his work on the effectiveness of solar incentives in solar adoption, “The Effect of Financial Incentive Policies on Residential Solar Panel Installation,” and Trevino presented her paper on discrimination in jury selection, “Discrimination in Peremptory Challenges.” Assistant Professor of Economics Katie Grooms supervised the projects produced by Kannegieter and Trevino.  Grooms was also the keynote speaker at the conference and presented her work “Water Pollution in the United States: Regulatory Enforcement, Firm Compliance, and Human Health.”

Emma Cooper ’20 and Markell Henderson ’19 participated as panelists in a financial seminar titled GLAD (Greeks -and others- Learning to Avoid Debt). Professor of Economics and Chair of the Department of Economics and Business Dirk Early and Assistant Professor of Business Hazel Nguyenalso participated as panelists and provided sage advice to student participants seeking knowledge about avoiding debt before and after graduation. The GLAD event was supervised by Associate Professor of Education Alicia Moore and was cohosted by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.; the Kappa Sigma fraternity; and EMPIRE.

Professor of Economics Dirk Early’s article on housing discrimination, “Racial Rent Differences in U.S. Housing Markets: Evidence from the Housing Voucher Program,” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Regional Science. The article is coauthored with Edgar Olsen at the University of Virginia and Paul Carrillo at George Washington University.

Professor of Economics Dirk Early had his research proposal “Effective Homeless Interventions and the Importance of Local Housing Market Conditions” accepted for funding through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The research grant funds his analysis of data from the Family Options Study, a randomized evaluation of housing interventions targeted toward homeless families. He will examine which interventions available to homeless families are the most effective in reducing homelessness and whether their effectiveness varies with local housing market conditions. The primary goal of the research is to guide policymakers in developing homeless prevention strategies that are the most effective for their area.