Research

Our department has diverse research strengths spanning many fields, and we are proud of our collaborative and adaptive research culture. Research faculty apply a mix of methods to their work including empirical, theoretical, and experimental methods. Our faculty include thought-leaders in integrating bounded rationality into dynamic macroeconomic models, applied macroeconomists working at the frontier of business cycle research, and economic theorists making advances in game theory, public economics, and culture and demography. Empirical researchers in the department include many specialists in advanced data-science and causal-inference techniques. Their influential research covers multiple fields such as labor, education, development, the environment, and social programs. The department also has longstanding research strength in international trade.


Fields of Study

Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Dynamic Macroeconomics
Economic Demography
Economic Development and Cultural Change
Education and Labor Economics
Environmental Economics and Data Science
Game Theory
Health & Crime Economics
Industrial Organization
International Trade
Applied Microeconomics

Attend an Economics Seminar

The Department of Economics brings outside researchers to campus for weekly formal seminars, during which we discuss topics of interest within our field. Although our seminars are geared toward faculty and graduate students, pre-economists are welcome to attend. Sign up below to receive updates.

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Kathleen Mullen on campus

“A longstanding focus of my research examines the effects of health on employment, particularly as they relate to social insurance programs such as disability insurance and Social Security. A more recent strand of research focuses on the role of job demands and working conditions in determining health status and labor force participation. A common thread throughout my work is the application of novel econometric and data collection methods to questions of causal inference, combining insights gained from structural modeling, quasi-experimental and experimental approaches. In my recent paper on working conditions in the US, my coauthors and I find that accounting for differences in preferences for working conditions often worsens wage differentials and intensifies measures of wage inequality.”

-Kathleen Mullen, Assoc Prof, Nancy and David Petrone Chair of Economics


Mark Colas in front of a tree

“I employ mostly model-based methods to conduct research on labor and public economics. In a recent project, my coauthor and I study the optimal design of subsidies for rooftop solar panels with a focus on how subsidies should vary across geographic locations. We find that the current set of subsidies lead to a severe misallocation of solar panels across space. We then quantify the environmental gains of moving to the optimal system of subsidies..”

-Mark Colas, Assistant Professor of Economics


 

News

May 31, 2023
ECONOMICS - People are living longer and birth rates are declining, and that could hamper growth of the U.S. gross domestic product, the monetary sum of goods and services, according to an April 2023 paper published in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. University of Oregon Associate Professor and Petrone Chair of Economics Kathleen Mullen is a co-author of the study.
January 31, 2023
ECONOMICS, PHYSICS - Two University of Oregon faculty members have been named 2022 fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), joining 508 other newly elected members whose work has distinguished them in the science community and beyond.
July 4, 2022
DATA SCIENCE, BIOLOGY, ECONOMICS - The Data Science Initiative graduated their first group of undergraduates. Seven undergraduate data science students walked the stage this spring to collect their diplomas, an exciting moment for the university’s new data science degree program.