Independent Study Students

In addition to course work, students are currently working on a wide range of independent study and thesis projects:  an econometric analysis of the potential macroeconomic and financial market impacts of a revaluation of the RMB in China; a class analysis of the music industry; a thesis in computer science building an XML based application for use by the financial services industry; a corporate finance and class analytical exploration of the changing pattern of control over the value creation process in mass media;  a study of the works of institutionalist economists, including Thorstein Veblen and Richard L. Brinkman; an examination of the relationship between racism and capital accumulation (including a psychologial and philosophical exploration of why the fiction of race is perpetuated within social science); a class analysis of financial market reforms in Botswana, Ghana, and South Africa; a case study of the Marvel Comics bankruptcy, including construction of a website for teaching this case study; analysis of the determinants of financial market development and reform in emerging markets.  Past independent study and thesis projects of students in economics, Asian studies, African & African-American studies, computer science, film studies, international relations, critical social thought, and self-designed majors have ranged far in geographic, theoretical, and empirical reach.  Students should feel free to come by 119 Skinner to discuss any proposals related to the courses listed on this page (both those taught at Mount Holyoke College and in other venues) or research in the following fields:  comparative economic systems, corporate finance, economic development, economic history, political economy or public finance, and the philosophy of economics.