Student Research
Research is central to the Economics major at Bates. While the Senior Thesis is the capstone of this experience, the journey of inquiry begins long before the final year. Our curriculum is designed to scaffold research skills, providing students with multiple opportunities to engage in empirical work through data analysis and collaborative discovery throughout their time in the department. From core coursework to faculty collaborations, our students are constantly developing the tools to ask meaningful questions and find rigorous answers.
Pre-thesis Research
Project-Based Coursework
Students engage in research from the earliest stages of the major. Many of our courses are project-based, allowing students to work on small-scale research projects that build essential skills. This begins in our core courses—Intermediate Theories, Economic Statistics, and Econometrics—where students learn to handle real-world data and apply economic models. These foundations are deepened in our upper-level electives, where students in various fields often conduct replications of recent research work or original empirical analysis as part of their classwork.
Research Assistantships
Beyond the classroom, students often work closely with faculty members as Research Assistants (RAs) or through summer research apprenticeships. These roles provide a unique opportunity to contribute to professional academic research, gaining hands-on experience in data collection, literature reviews, and advanced statistical methods alongside a faculty mentor.
- Current Students: If you are interested in potential research assistantship opportunities, please express your interest via this Google Form (Bates login required).
- Note: all entries are valid within the academic year. Please submit a fresh entry at the beginning of a new academic year (Aug. 1st each year) to reflect the changes in your skillset and interests.
Thesis Research
All of our seniors pursue independent research projects spanning many different areas of Economics, and we are proud of the research they produce. Many also present their work in the spring at the Mount David Summit or the Maine Economics Conference.
Below is a sample of student thesis work from recent years.
Class of 2026
Class of 2025
You can find a sample of recent thesis posters through the link here (Bates Login Required).
Class of 2021
 Quinn Kiernat | Outstanding fall thesis presentation, by faculty vote | Do Immigrants “Bring” Crime? An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Counties |
 Olivia McCulloch | Best winter thesis presentation, by faculty vote | What are the Long-Term Effects of the Spanish Influenza on Innovation in the Drug & Medical Industry in the United States? (Video) |
 John Rex | Received Stangle Family Award for a Senior | A Half-Full Glass: Using Google Trends and Natural Language Processing to Examine Investor Behavior in Response to Big-Tech News (Video) |
 Maddie Sirois | Runner-up for best winter thesis presentation, by faculty vote | Employer-Funded Transportation Benefits and Modal Choice: A Study of Puget Sound Commuters (Video) |
 Sam Stoner | Outstanding fall thesis presentation, by faculty vote | The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Air Quality (Video) |
Class of 2020
 Julien Lewin | Nominated outstanding thesis by faculty | The Effect of Prescription Opioid Use on Labor Market Conditions (Thesis) |
 James MacDonald | Nominated outstanding thesis by faculty | Financial Market Stress: Measuring Spillover Effects Across Countries (Thesis) (Poster) |
 Christopher Simard | Nominated outstanding thesis by faculty | Bike-Sharing Systems and the Transportation Modal Choice Problem: A Natural Experiment in New York City (Thesis) (Poster) |
 Abdul Tawab Ajm Safi | Received Stangle Award for Best Senior Thesis | Learning to Beat the Random Walk: Using Machine Learning to Predict Changes in Exchange Rates (Thesis) (Poster) (Code) |
