Economics research addresses key issues across state, country

Research by W. P.  Carey economists, in particular, focuses on broad sectors of society, everything from education to water regulation to employment, and can inform and impact public policy from local to national levels.

Wide-ranging research in the social sciences at ASU — including economics research within the W. P.  Carey School and beyond — landed the university the No. 4 spot in the Higher Education Research and Development Survey rankings.

Research by W. P.  Carey economists, in particular, focuses on broad sectors of society, everything from education to water regulation to employment, and can inform and impact public policy at the state and national levels.

This touches lives in myriad ways, whether improving employment outcomes for people with serious mental illnesses or exploring how different households respond to different financial instruments.

The Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey is the primary source of information on research and development expenditures at United States colleges and universities. According to the 2017 HERD rankings:

• ASU moves to the No. 4 spot in the social sciences category, which includes economics, with more than $71 million in grant funding. That ranking beat No. 5 in 2015.
• W. P. Carey saw its own economics grant funding increase to more than $7 million, and that funding has been steadily climbing since 2013.
• Among other HERD-ranking business schools, ASU’s overall ranking in economics hit No. 12.

ASU has seen year-over-year increases in its overall social sciences ranking and corresponding grant funding since 2013.

The boost in rankings is key for several reasons, says Gustavo Ventura, professor and chair of W. P.  Carey's Department of Economics. Not only can the rankings and grant funding help leverage other grants, but they can also help attract more researchers and more students focused on the field of social sciences.

The opportunities for growth in the economics arena continue, he says, as W. P.  Carey and other schools are seeing new faculty bringing in related research projects.

Broad community impact

The impact of economics research projects within W. P.  Carey and beyond is wide-ranging.

Consider a recent submission for a National Science Foundation grant that would establish a Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) at ASU, says Professor of Economics Bart Hobijn.

At such sites, researchers have access to confidential data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other statistical agencies that are not publicly available. Currently, the closest center is in Los Angeles.

“It will provide social science and other researchers at ASU — and in the Southwest more generally — access to the confidential federal government data that is increasingly being used for frontier research in many social sciences and health sciences,” Hobijin explains.

The proposal is supported by ASU's administration and seven units at the university, as well as Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona.

Research by Professor of Economics Marjorie Baldwin focuses on the experiences of persons with disabilities in the labor market, a project funded by a four-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

“I am particularly interested in the experiences of persons with serious mental illness (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, major depressive disorder) because they are subject to so much stigma and have such poor labor market outcomes,” she says. “However, with currently available treatments many people with even the most serious mental illness (SMI) can be successful in regular competitive jobs.”

For the NIMH project, Balwin’s team is surveying 1,000 people classified with SMI who are working in a competitive job, or have worked in a competitive job post-onset of mental illness, to find out about their real-world experiences of disclosing (or not disclosing) their diagnosis in the workplace.

“The results should inform workers, employers, and health care providers regarding how the disclosure process can be managed to improve employment outcomes for this disadvantaged population,” she says.

Connected schools

Across ASU, economists hold positions in different schools beyond the Department of Economics, from marketing to the School of Sustainability to the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. This gives the university more opportunities for economists with certain expertise to work collaboratively on grant-funded projects that can have a broad impact, Ventura says.

For example, a research project underway looks at the economics of water by focusing on issues such as property rights and regulation. The project is led by Michael Hanemann, a Julie A. Wrigley Chair in Sustainability at the School of Sustainability, who is also a professor in the Department of Economics.

“It’s very impactful to do this kind of research, especially in the Southwest,” Ventura says.

A grant awarded to Associate Professor of Economics Esteban Aucejo by the U.S. Department of Education will cover multiple topics such as how the effectiveness of teachers varies by classroom composition and the extent to which complementarities between classroom composition and teaching practices play a significant role in student achievement. Meanwhile, Professor of Economics Daniel Silverman uses a grant to explore the degree of financial sophistication of different types of households and how those households respond to different financial instruments.

“These are big questions for which we need to have answers and these answers are not easy to come by,” Ventura says. “They require lots of data and lots of modeling.”

“As a public university, it is important that ASU promotes research that will improve the lives of the taxpayers who support it,” Baldwin says. “The research of applied economists — for example, labor, health, environmental economists — can inform public policies to address some of the most pressing issues facing our state and our country.”