Creating a Pipeline of Young Economics Researchers

The University of Minnesota is one of the world’s leading research institutions, and for many incoming students, having a chance to learn about research directly from the faculty can be a defining part of their education. Economics is geared to give aspiring researchers a thorough introduction to the field.  

In 2017, the department’s Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute (HHEI) started the Undergraduate Research Assistant (RA) Program, and now has over 60 alumni, all placed in top PhD programs, research institutions, and prestigious firms across the country. 

Legacy of Leading Research

Formally launched in 2010, the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute was initially built to bridge the gap between the research being done by the University’s economists and its application in the real world. 

“Having the opportunity to inform public policy, to promote public good, is really the main crux of the work we do and the work that we advance,” says Hannah Fairman, associate director of HHEI. 

Many of the department’s faculty have received funding from the institute for their policy-relevant work on issues ranging from poverty and inequality to climate change, and from human capital to fiscal regulation. These research projects, with implications for both state and national policies, are prioritized for funding, and the undergrad research assistants often contribute to them.

“The RAs in the HHEI program are instrumental in moving that work forward and providing support to those projects to help them advance. It’s a really critical part of the program,” says Fairman. 

An Eclectic Palette of Projects

The program seeks to recruit students with strong mathematical, statistics, and programming skills, but most importantly, those who demonstrate a keen interest in the field of economics. 

Applications open in the spring, and the process is highly competitive, with only a select number of students getting paired with faculty members each year.

At the end of the academic year, students present at a poster session to the general public, which is a culmination of all the work they have been doing throughout the two terms.

One of the highlights of the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program is that no two projects are the same, and by consequence, every student’s experience is uniquely their own. For Mikolaj Dueholm (BS’ 23, economics; BA ‘23, history), a former research associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis who is now an analyst at Cornerstone Research, flexibility in choosing a project was a big plus.

“[It] gave me the opportunity to look at various types of research and explore perhaps more of my interests than I would otherwise be able to do,” says Dueholm, emphasizing how it’s even more critical at the nascent stages when a student might not have a precise idea of what area they want to specialize in.

As a result, Dueholm worked on a number of projects during his time as a research assistant with Professor Ellen McGrattan, including studying the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on CEO-to-employee pay ratios, investigating the relationship between central bank independence and inflation, and examining effective corporate tax rates by scraping financial documents to compare actual tax payments with statutory rates.

Isaac Maruyama (BS ’23, economics; BA ‘23, political science), who is now doing his pre-doctoral research fellowship in economics at MIT’s Policy Impact, says it was the policy-focused point of view of HHEI that attracted him. As a research assistant for Professor Fahima Aziz, Maruyama got to work on analyzing the impact of state-paid family leave policies on female labor force participation. It was his first exposure to a research environment in economics.

“Getting that exposure early on, in my undergraduate career, was really helpful. It sort of gave me a sense of what it's like, something I probably wouldn’t have been able to get just through classes and normal projects,” says Maruyama. 

Huda Osman (BS’ 22, economics and philosophy), a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, resonates with this thought. “I think if I only took economics courses, and I went straight for a PhD, I would have had a much harder time doing research.”

Osman worked for Professor Joseph Mullins on the effect of schools and early environments on children’s behavior and how that goes on to shape their future economic outcomes. The experience, she says, taught her about 90% of what research involves and made the theories being taught in class much more digestible when seen from an application standpoint. 

Networking Without the Nerves

If there is a single common thread among the cohorts of undergrad research assistants, it is the value they received from faculty mentorship—a core component of the program. 

For Osman, the guidance she received from Mullins made the prospect of getting a PhD much less intimidating.  

“He helped me understand what it’s like to be in a PhD program, including the outcomes later on,” says Osman. “He acknowledged both the rewards and the challenges, and we talked openly about the focus and persistence it requires.”

Dueholm says meeting with faculty outside of normal classes and getting to learn one-on-one with them helped him bag his current role at the Fed, and it “continues even now, close to two years out of the program.”

Besides faculty connections, students also get enormous value from the peer network the program helps build. According to Maruyama, it helped him find a community who were interested in the same path of research as him. 

“Getting to learn from the RAs that were a year ahead and see their experience and watch as they were applying for pre-docs made me think about my experience. It was super helpful for me when I ended up doing the same and applying for [those same] positions,” he recollects.

Meetings with all research assistants are held every month, and sometimes, guest speakers, such as HHEI alumni, come in and speak about their experiences and current research roles. The idea is to provide a low-stakes and easy platform for networking.

Osman says it both normalized and humanized the daunting process of reaching out for informational interviews. “It makes you feel like, if they could do it, I could possibly do it too. And now I’m here doing this.”

A Stepping Stone for Bigger Things

For a majority of HHEI alumni, the Undergraduate Research Assistant program has been a pivotal stepping stone in getting their careers kick-started. Most entry-level research positions look for skills that the HHEI program helps cultivate—communicating effectively, being responsive to your advisor/principal investigator, learning to adapt to new projects or a new code base, and asking good questions.

“I think a big part of the reason I was able to get here [at the Fed] is because of my HHEI experience and the relationships I built here at the University of Minnesota,” remarks Dueholm. “And then moving from the current job I have now to the next one in economic consulting, I think a lot of that stems from that time in HHEI and the ability to learn the coding skills, the research skills, the math skills, and then network with people.”

Beyond learning basic data cleaning and technical skills, the research assistant program helped give Osman the confidence and courage she needed to pursue a life in academia. “The most rewarding aspect of the RA program is that it made the path clear and attainable. It instilled a sense of belonging.”

The program has been immensely successful in creating a valuable economy of its own: bright, budding researchers who want to leave a mark on the world through policy.

In the end, Fairman says, the work the research assistants do and continue to do in the real world comes back to fulfilling HHEI’s original mission.

“[It’s] about translating research into policy, making a public impact, and ensuring that research makes its way into the world to promote the public good. So it comes full circle.”

This story was written by Anushka Raychaudhuri, an undergraduate student in CLA. Special thanks to Josh Detloff for conducting the interviews for this story.