The College of Arts and Sciences

The College of Arts and Sciences - Connecting the West with the World and Faculty with Students

Department of Economics

" Global warming, sky-rocketing health care costs, suburban and exurban sprawl, dependency on foreign oil, globalization, the viability of Social Security: Just a few of the major social policy problems Economics analyzes. "

• The Economics Department offers Economics Majors small classes, informal interaction with faculty, and a supervised research experience.
• Economics studies how people make choices about the use of scarce resources. Those scarce resources include environmental quality and outdoor recreation opportunities as well as entrepreneurial drive, labor effort, and minerals. The Economics Department’s mission is to introduce students to the tools that allow a critical analysis of the individual and social choices we make about resource use. We provide students an opportunity to apply those tools in a supervised research project of their own.
• The Economics Department focuses on applying Economics to current social problems in our own “wilderness” backyard, in contemporary political debates, and in developing countries around the world. Our young faculty was chosen for their commitment to students and their passion for research and the sharing of those research results.

Undergraduate Student Sam Schabacker

Hometown: Longmont, CO

Senior Thesis Advisor: Richard Barrett

Research Topic: Micro Lending in South America

Sam Schabacker was chosen because of the importance of the topic in economic development, Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Bolivian Rural Microcredit Program. Microcredit programs such as the Grameen Bank have become a very popular vehicle for promoting small scale, distributed economic development. Microcredit programs have claimed some spectacular successes, but many have also failed, possibly indicating that borrowers were unable to make effective use of loans. Schabacker spent the summer of 2005 working with a microcredit organization in Bolivia. Based on that experience, and on data he is compiling from a variety of sources, Schabacker is trying to identify the factors leading to the success or failure of microcredit organizations.

Undergraduate Student Steve Cameron

Hometown: Great Falls, MT

Senior Thesis Advisor: Thomas Power

Research Topic: NorthWestern Energy and Tax Liabilities

Steve Cameron was chosen because it is an important and timely Montana topic.

 

 

Graduate student Benjamin Harris

Hometown: Missoula, MT

Thesis Advisor: Jennifer Alix-Garcia

Research Topic: Inequality and Participation in Missoula Neighborhood Councils

Benjamin Harris was chosen because he is working on an exciting and important local topic.

 

Graduate student Brian Vander Naald

Hometown: Cincinnati, OH

Thesis Advisor: Jeff Bookwalter

Research Topic: Fiscal Federalism and Decentralization in Ethiopia

Brian Vander Naald was chosen because of the applicability of this work in third world countries.