The "Issues in Political Economy" (IPE) journal and related conference sessions were established in the early 1990s as outlets for undergraduates to present and publish peer-reviewed research in economics. By providing opportunities to attend and present at professional conferences, referee papers, and edit journal issues, IPE reflects…

The authors of this article describe three student-driven learning modules developed from their respective College Fed Challenge courses. These activities are ready-to-apply in a wide range of courses to facilitate adoption without a large time commitment. In the "Pick a Policy Maker" module, students gain an understanding of the…

Whether pursuing immediate professional careers or preparing for graduate research, for many students the opportunities to conduct original research as undergraduates can be formative, creating a valuable differentiating factor on their resumes. The Economics Scholars Program builds an environment where undergraduate students can conduct economic…

In this article, the author describes the use of primary literature readings in an upper-division undergraduate field course. One of the two main learning goals of the course was to teach students how to read academic articles in economics with a critical eye. This was accomplished by providing students with a structured framework for summarizing…

It is challenging for economics major programs to support an undergraduate research capstone where the goal is for all majors to complete a research project that creates new knowledge. Our program has found a way to achieve this for all of our majors in the face of resource constraints and varying student skill levels, and has done this without…

This article's authors offer an organizational framework for an economics capstone course focused on analyzing current public economic policy issues. In this course, thesis topics often include public issues such as city planning, health care, transportation, education, law, the environment, and monetary and fiscal policies. The authors provide…

Angrist and Pischke (2017) call for a pedagogical paradigm shift by pointing out that econometrics courses often do not align with modern empirical approaches employed by economists. This article's authors propose a modern capstone experience, designed to address these concerns by integrating econometrics into the traditional capstone approach.…

One of the key advantages of attending a small liberal arts college is the opportunity to engage in research; at research universities, these opportunities are often given to graduate students. Further, smaller class sizes make it possible to personalize instruction to showcase how the tools students learn in their courses are used to answer…

The authors of this article describe an empirical research project as a component of an upper-level undergraduate economics writing-in-the-discipline course, thus aiming to reduce the high fixed costs associated with designing an empirical research project assignment and encourage more undergraduate economics research. This project is central to…

This article describes strategies developed at Princeton University to foster and promote research by all undergraduate students majoring in economics. It describes core features of the undergraduate research program and provides tangible recommendations for addressing resource constraints, and for incentivizing faculty advisors and students to…

One of the key components to the undergraduate research enterprise at Dartmouth is the recognition that learning to do research requires both directed instruction and learning by doing. The economics faculty have tailored a fruitful undergraduate research program based on this philosophy, and this article describes these efforts while also…

Although experiential learning approaches, such as service-learning, have been shown to increase student motivation and academic achievement, faculty concerns about the costs of developing and implementing such courses have limited their adoption within economics. One cost that can be eliminated is the opportunity cost typically associated with…

The authors summarize successes in training researchers in the University of Chicago economics program over the last 15 years. Students learn to investigate quantitative relations using models in which purposeful but constrained economic agents interact. They are shown how a productive research culture requires careful work, collegiality, and…

Economics majors at Macalester College have won numerous awards for their research papers, and this success has helped them land jobs in finance, consulting, and the nonprofit sector, as well as gain admission to top graduate programs. This article describes how the Economics Department at Macalester promotes economic research among its students.

Siegfried and Stock (2007) explore the undergraduate training of PhD economists. Their findings show that among U.S. undergraduate economics programs, the Harvard University Economics Department produces many eventual economics PhD recipients. In this article, the authors discuss Harvard's undergraduate economics program and highlight some key…