The Department of Economics is proud to present the Hollingsworth and Waco Childers Undergraduate Research Scholars for Summer 2007. The Undergraduate Research
Program is designed
to encourage collaborative research between faculty and students in the
Department of Economics. The tradition of the summer scholars is to produce quality research and papers that are presented in various venues and sometimes published in periodicals such as The American Economist, Issues in Political Economy and The Undergraduate Journal of Economics
Elizabeth Bradley |
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Elizabeth Bradley is a rising senior from Birmingham, Alabama. Her research title is Poverty and the Black Belt of South Carolina. Elizabeth discusses her project as follows: "We empirically examine the determinants of poverty for south Carolina's 46 counties. This paper attempts to prove the existence of a Black Belt unique to South Carolina, and that this region has significantly positive influences on its counties' family poverty rates. Also, in order to dispel the notion that being located on the I-95 corridor contributes to poverty in South Carolina, we attempt to prove that interstates in general actually have a negative effect on family poverty rates in South Carolina counties. When these truths are established, legislators can justify altering their study area of South Carolina poverty." Elizabeth worked with Dr. Jean Horney.
| Michael Wise |
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Michael Wise comes to Furman from Orangeburg, South Carolina. This summer, Michael and Elizabeth worked together on Poverty and the Black Belt of South Carolina as described above by Elizabeth. Again, Dr. Jean Horney served as their faculty advisor.
| Sam Giffin |
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Sam Giffin, a rising junior from Lugoff, South Carolina, worked with Quinton White researching their topic of The Effects of Marriage on Men and Women's Wages. Dr. Jeffrey Yankow served as their faculty advisor. Sam commented on his research by saying "given the massive amount of writing on the male marriage premium, we are attempting to determine if such a marriage premium exists for women, and why/why not."
| Quinton White |
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Quinton White is a rising senior from Jacksonville, Florida. Quinton and Sam wored with Dr. Jeffrey Yankow this summer researching The Effects of Marriage on Men and Women's Wages. Quinton describes his research as follows: "We (Sam and I) are looking at the different ways and explanations for why marriage affects wages. For men, it's regularly proven that married men are paid more than unmarried men. For women, the results are less conclusive. Most of our study is focused on women's relationship to marriage but it also includes a fair amount about why married men get paid more."
| Chad Miller |
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Chad Miller is a rising senior from Fort Mill, South Carolina. The title of his research is World Poverty: History, Measurement, Policy, and Scope. Chad says "In the paper I do a thorough literature review to determine when poverty as a global issue entered the public consciousness, how it began to be empirically measured, how it's measured now, what policy issues were recommended to combat it in the past, and where economists believe policy should go in the future. My interest in world poverty came from thinking about how economic growth can be used to fight it, and as such, what stimulates growth in very poor countries."
