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Department of Economics

Economics professor Gregory Leo talks to a student while sitting at the desk in his office

Research Overview

Dive Deep. The Department of Economics is a vibrant place for research, where experts in theoretical and applied economics collaborate with undergraduates, graduate students, and post-docs to produce, present and publish cutting-edge findings at leading conferences and scientific journals. Renowned scholars guide an exceptional group of students to achieve their potential though daily hands-on instruction, workshops, and seminars. Public events with lectures by Nobel laureates and top policymakers from the federal government are standard fare.   

Research Spotlights

Christopher “Kitt” Carpenter

E. Bronson Ingram Chair and Professor of Economics

The recent research of professor Kitt Carpenter, a labor and health economist who is one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of LGBTQ+ populations, addresses issues such as how sexual and gender minorities fare in the labor market using survey and administrative data from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also interested in the role of public policies such as legal same-sex marriage in shaping family, health, and labor market outcomes. He has evaluated the health effects of public health-related funding and laws, especially regarding cancer screenings, obesity, alcohol consumption, and smoking. Dr. Carpenter is the Founding Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health, part of the Provost’s Discovery Vanderbilt initiative. The center seeks to unite and amplify Vanderbilt’s research on health-related inequalities. He is also the Founding Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, a Trans-Institutional Program (TIP) that seeks to understand the correlates, causes, and consequences of LGBTQ-related public policies and brings together scholars from law, education, health policy, sociology, political science, economics, religious studies, and divinity.

 

Christopher Li

Assistant Professor of Economics

Political polarization has been a focus of assistant professor Chris Li’s research. A recent paper of his provides a new theoretical perspective on the effect of political polarization on public policy. The findings demonstrate a potentially nuanced relationship between polarization and policymaking. Contrary to the popular belief that a polarized electorate ultimately leads to more-partisan politics, Li and his coauthor show that under some circumstances politicians will be motivated to override partisan temptations to make a policy more universally appealing. This provides a case for the resilience of democracy to polarization and opens new avenue for further research. In an on-going project, Li is exploring whether electoral institutions that are traditionally viewed as promoting compromises between political parties can in fact exacerbate polarization.

 

 

Michelle Marcus

Michelle Marcus in front of trees and a brick building on the Vanderbilt University campus

Assistant Professor of Economics

Professor Marcus is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on determinants of child health and well-being, with a particular focus on environmental exposures and the effectiveness of regulation. Some of her recent research seeks to quantify the direct health impacts of important sources of pollution, such as leaking underground storage tanks, lead service lines, and drinking water contamination. Other work measures the effectiveness of regulation and the role of behavioral responses, focusing on maritime emission regulation and public notification requirements, for example. Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Health Economics, and Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

 

 

Research Resources and Locations

The Vanderbilt LGBT Policy Lab, supported by the Vanderbilt TIPS program and administered by Professor Kitt Carpenter, serves as an intellectual hub for multidisciplinary research on the causes and consequences of LGBT public policies such as marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws, bathroom bills, religious freedom laws, and others. It brings together scholars from numerous academic departments, including those in other Vanderbilt schools, and provides many opportunities for interdisciplinary research and collaboration.