Economics Department Honors Research Program
The Honors Research Program provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to get first-hand experience doing scholarly research. Students spend a year engaged in independent research projects under the supervision of members of the faculty. In previous years, students have engaged in a wide range of topics from the impact of regulations on banks' balance sheets to the links between crime and alcohol to the relationship between personality traits and the repayment of microfinance loans in Africa.
Students enrolled in the Program submit written theses and present their work to the Economics Department Honors and Awards Committee in April.
Students who would like to earn Economics Departmental Honors designations must complete the Honors Research Program.
The Economics Department Honors Research Program satisfies the "Capstone" requirement for the Honors College.
Prerequisites
To apply for the Honors Research Program, students must:
- Be a declared Economics Major.
- Completed 01:220:320 Intermediate Microeconomics and 01:220:321 Intermediate Macroeconomics
- Have earned a B+ or higher in 01:220:322 Econometrics
- Have an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher
- Have an Economics GPA of 3.7 or higher
Honors Research Coursework
Students who are admitted into Honors Research must enroll in the following courses:
- One advanced econometrics class from the following list:
01:220:422 Advanced Econometrics for Microeconomic Data, or
01:220:423 Advanced Time Series and Financial Econometrics, or
16:220:509 Applied Econometrics for Microeconomics - 01:220:493 Honors Research I (Fall semester)
- 01:220:494 Honors Research II (Spring semester)
All of these courses are special permission only. Special permission numbers will be given to students who apply to and are accepted into the program.
Application Procedure
You must formally apply to the Economics Department's Honor Research Program. The key component of this application is a letter or e-mail from a tenure-track faculty member of the Economics Department stating that he or she will serve as your advisor. This confirmation email should be sent directly by the advisor to:
In order to be accepted you must have completed the prerequisites before you apply, have a tenure-track faculty member who agrees to be your advisor, and a research proposal that is feasible to complete in your senior year. Admission will be at the discretion of the department based on those criteria.
To identify tenure-track faculty members see here: https://economics.rutgers.edu/people/faculty anyone listed as "Assistant Professor of Economics" "Associate Professor of Economics" "Professor of Economics" or "Distinguished Professor of Economics"
To apply, please complete the following form and e-mail it to:
< Honors Research Application>
Application materials should be submitted by August 1. Special Permission Numbers for 01:220:493 will be given out by early August to those students who are accepted into the Honors Research Program.