Individualized Research Experience
Economics students have the opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty members on cutting-edge research in areas such as innovation and technology, biotechnology and health economics, economic data modeling, behavioral and experimental economics, and more.
Research by First-Year Economics Students
Applying to RPI? Want to do research? Our First-Year Economics Research Award provides up to $3,000 for paid research participation, plus an additional $500 for research expenses, in your first year. Awardees work with a faculty member on their ongoing research or on a student-driven project under faculty supervision. Applications will be solicited from admitted students in the spring prior to their freshman year. Students must be an Economics major or dual Economics major to be eligible. If you don’t receive the Research Award, you’re encouraged to apply for research under our normal Undergraduate Research Program, allowing $1,000 per semester of paid research participation. Course credit opportunities are also available.
Topics include:
- Impact of health IT adoption on hospitals’ financial and quality performance
- Health interventions and medication adherence
- Medical devices and recalls
- Innovation in pharmaceuticals markets
- Health IT adoption and diffusion among physician clinics
- Health data analytics
- Health insurance
- Health policy related to Medicare and Medicaid
- Benefit-cost policy evaluation
- Development health economics
Faculty: Vivek Ghosal, Jason Huh, and Jianjing Lin
Topics include:
- Adoption and diffusion of new technologies
- Evolution of technologies and industry dynamics
- Disruptive technological change
- Firms’ R&D and patenting decisions
- Strategic behavior in technology adoption
- Network externalities in information technology
- Internationalization of innovation
- Evaluation of subsidy programs on the diffusion of new technology
- Innovation and competition
- Human capital and innovation
- Firm and industry productivity
- Innovation-knowledge stocks accumulation
- Product and process innovation
Faculty: Vivek Ghosal, Michael Klein, Jianjing Lin, and Kenneth L. Simons
Topics include:
- Regulatory reform
- Regulatory assessments
- Optimum regulatory standards
- Impact of regulatory mandates on firm strategy
- Benefit-cost approach to regulations
- International comparisons of regulatory standards
- Health-care regulations and policy
Faculty: Vivek Ghosal and Jason Huh
Topics include:
- Antitrust laws and enforcement
- Environmental laws and enforcement
- Valuation of financial assets and closely held businesses
- Forensic economics
- Copyright law
- Intellectual property laws and enforcement
- Health-care laws
Faculty: Vivek Ghosal, Michael Klein, and Robert Jones
Topics include:
- Structural estimation
- Cluster computation
- Time-series analysis
- Economic and financial forecasting
- Forecast accuracy
- Simulation and computational methods
- Measuring economic uncertainty
- Quantile regressions
- Dynamic panel data models
- Large factor models
- Modeling and testing for structural breaks
- Model misspecification
- Nonparametric and semiparametric methods
- Spatial analysis
- Big data analytics
Faculty: Rui Fan, Jason Huh, Jianjing Lin, Huaming Peng, and Kenneth L. Simons
Topics include:
- Industry shakeouts
- Industry dynamics
- Firm entry and exit
- Product variety and differentiation
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Competition
- Market structure and market power
- Antitrust
Faculty: Vivek Ghosal, Jianjing Lin, and Kenneth L. Simons
Topics include:
- Foreign direct investment
- Organization of multinational firms
- Dynamics of comparative advantage
- Technological spillovers
- Product space connectedness
- Optimal trade and industrial policy
Faculty: Michael Klein
Topics include:
- Optoelectronics technology and innovation
- LED lighting
- Solar photovoltaics
Faculty: Kenneth L. Simons
Research Sponsors:
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
- National Academies – Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
- U.S. Department of Transportation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Ragnar Söderberg’s Foundation
- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
- National Telephone Cooperative Association
- RAND Corporation