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Honors Program Information

Director: Prof. Bryan Engelhardt

Overview

The department honors program provides outstanding economics and economics-accounting majors the opportunity to conduct independent research in economics. The program consists of three parts. In the spring of the junior year, department honors students take a research methods seminar (ECON 460 Research Methods I) in which they learn and practice using the tools of economic research, develop a thesis topic and literature review, and choose an advisor. (This course is a lower-level elective for economics majors.) In the fall of senior year, honors students write their honors thesis under the guidance of their advisor. (The thesis is an upper-level elective course, ECON 462 Honors Directed Research.) In the spring of senior year, students prepare a presentation to be given at the College Academic Conference, and provide guidance to the juniors in the research methods class. (This is a half-course overload, ECON 462 Research Methods II.) To be granted honors at graduation, students must meet the standards in each course. Please direct all questions to the director of the program, Prof. Bryan Engelhardt, bengelha@holycross.edu, 508-793-3669.

Applications

Applications are solicited in the fall of the junior year. The Fall 2011 deadine is October 7.  Economics major applicants will normally finish ECON 255 Microeconomics, ECON 256 Macroeconomics and ECON 249 Statistics by the fall of junior year, though exceptions are routinely made for candidates with other strong credentials. Applications are competitive, and require a recommendation, transcript, essay, and other materials. Decisions are made by the Honors Selection Committee following interviews. Economics-accounting majors should have taken accounting courses through ECOA 278 Intermediate Accounting II, ECON 111-112 Principles of Micro and Macro, ECON 249 Statistics, and the second semester of calculus equivalent by fall of the junior year. Students studying away from the College in the spring of junior year or any time during senior year are not eligible for the program. The program usually admits between four and six students in any given class.

Special considerations for Economics-Accounting Majors

Economics-Accounting majors face special challenges in completing the program due to the large number of courses that are required for the major, and the 14 course cap placed on economics department courses.

  • Economics-accounting majors must be aware that admission to the honors program may affect course selection and possibly require taking additional coursework as overloads or away from the College. Given the CPA exam requires 150 hours of coursework to sit for the exam, in reality this may not be an unreasonable burden.
  • Majors have 13 required courses and one elective in the department (in addition to a year of Calculus). Economics-accounting majors are required to take 14 courses within the department and may take two additional electives for a maximum of sixteen courses.
  • Majors often take electives such as Corporation Finance, Accounting Information Systems, Financial Institutions and Markets, and other economics courses. Some students need some specific electives in order to sit for the CPA exam in some states.
  • The honors program will take up two of the electives. If an honors student wishes to take Econometrics to help with the thesis, that will take up the final elective that may count towards graduation. Econometrics has Microeconomics as a prerequisite, which normally would require an overload.

 

Typical Schedule for economics-accounting major in honors program

(honors courses in bold)

 

Recent honors theses

Previous honors theses are posted on the department web page:

 

Published honors theses

Several previous honors theses have been published in academic journals as joint papers by the student and advisor. A partial list can be found below:

Baumann, Robert and Katie Lucia '05, "Differences in the College Enrollment Decision Across Race," American Economist, forthcoming (likely Spring 2008).

Cahill, Miles B. and Alaina C. George '03, "Executive Compensation Incentives in a Volatile Market," American Economist, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Fall), 2005: pp. 33-43.

Hinds, Scott '00, Nicolas Sanchez and David Schap, "Public Enterprise: Retrospective Survey and Prospective Theory" in Jurgen G. Backhaus and Richard E. Wagner (eds.) Handbook on Public Finance, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004: pp. 277-300.

Schap, David and Andrew T. Young '97, "Enterprise and Biodiversity: Do Market Forces Yield Diversity of Life?" Cato Journal, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring/Summer), 1999: 49-67.

Schap, David and Deirdre K. Valvo '96, "Recoverable Damages for Wrongful Death in the States," Journal of Forensic Economics, Vol. 10, No. 3 (fall), 1997: 279-84.

Carter, John R. and Shannon A. McAloon '94, "A Test for Comparative Income Effects in an Ultimatum Bargaining Experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 31 (December), 1996: 369-380.

Carter, John R. and Stephen D. Guerette '90, "An Experimental Study of Expressive Voting," Public Choice, Vol. 73 (April), 1992: 251-260.