Symposium Edition 2008

By Duke Economics in Uncategorized on August 9, 2008.

The sixth annual Undergraduate Research Symposium was held on April 11-12 in the Social Sciences building. Thirteen papers were presented by students from Duke University, the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Davidson College. This year, we received more submissions than ever and the overall quality of the papers, even the ones not accepted, was quite high.

Financial economics was again a popular topic for student research, particularly among Duke students. Peter Van Tassel presented “Patterns Within the Trading Day: Volatility and Jump Discontinuities in High Frequency Equity Price Series,” Andrey Fradkin presented “The Informational Content of Implied Volatility in Individual Stocks and the Market,” and Ryan Tolkin and Michael Sloyer presented “VIX as a Fix: Equity Volatility in a Life Cycle Investing Context.” All of these authors are Duke students. Emmanuel Bello from UNC-Chapel Hill mixed financial economics with industrial organization in his paper, “Revisiting the Davis Thesis: Preliminary Evidence of Stock Market Impact on Industrial Concentration.”

Family economics was also well represented at this year’s Symposium. These papers included “The Effects of Sexual Education on Women’s Labor Force Participation,” by Meghan Morris of UNC-Chapel Hill; “Risky Business: The Effect of Family Income on Teen Risky Sexual Behavior,” by Valerie Kaplan and Caitlin McLaughlin, both of Duke; and “The Effect of Abortion Restrictions on Foster Care Entry Rates,” by Sarah Sutherland, also a Duke student.

Education policy was the other topic area with multiple papers presented. The first was “Tracking Decisions in North Carolina’s Public High Schools,” by Mike Harris of Duke. The second was a joint effort among Davidson College students Ben Ellinor, Arthur Etchells, and Andrew Waddell entitled “Improving Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools: Addressing Labor Market Failures.”

Several other excellent papers individually represented other fields of economics. Aleksandr Andreev’s paper “To Work or Not to Work: Labor Supply Decisions of Russia’s Disabled” dealt with a fundamental issue in labor economics. Aleksandr is a Duke student. R. Andrew Butters of UNC-Chapel Hill presented this year’s microeconomic theory paper, “The Effect of the Learning Curve on the Optimal Dynamic Contract.” And finally, Sruthi Thatchenkery of Duke presented the timely empirical microeconomics paper “Determinants of Demand for Hybrid-Electric Vehicles.”

One paper presented in this year’s Symposium does not appear in this issue of the DJE because it has already appeared in an earlier issue: Jiasheng Lee’s “Evaluating the Elderly Retired in a Tiebout Context.” Jiasheng is a Duke student.

Special congratulations go out to Aleksandr Andreev for winning the Best Paper prize, and to Peter Van Tassel, who won the Runner Up prize this year.

Connel Fullenkamp,  Faculty Sponsor