Students who want to participate in the Honors Program are strongly encouraged to take the core economics courses (ECON 101, 201D, 205D, 204D, and 210D) as early as possible. Core courses are prerequisites for the Honors seminars, Econ 495 and Econ 496. Most importantly, you will not be allowed to register for an Honors seminar if you have not already completed Econ 204 Econometrics Data Science.
An honors student’s primary thesis advisor should ideally be a regular rank faculty member with a primary appointment in the Economics Department. If a student wishes to work with a primary advisor outside of the Economics Department, they must have a secondary advisor with a primary appointment in the Economics Department.
Students are also encouraged to investigate participation in faculty-led research projects within the Duke Economic Analytics Laboratory (DEAL). Research within these projects can also be the foundation for an honors thesis.
Path to the Honors Thesis
The traditional path to completion of the honors thesis is through the two-semester Honors Seminar Sequence (Econ 495 and Econ 496). Alternatively, students may do two semesters of Honors Research Independent Studies (Econ 493 and 494) with a faculty member willing to work with the student for two semesters to guide the student through the research needed to produce an honors thesis. Approval by the faculty is demonstrated through submission of an approval form.
Students may also do a combination of the two paths. For example, a student could do one semester in an Honors Seminar and one semester in an Honors Research Independent Study.
Students should ideally begin this process in the spring semester of their junior year. Again, all core courses are prerequisites for Econ 495/496 and should therefore be completed before the spring of junior year.
Davies Fellowships are available to sponsor some of these juniors (and their mentors) to enable them to do research full time under the supervision of their advisor during the summer between their junior and senior years.
Honors Info Session
March 18, 2025 6pm location TBA
Recording of the Spring, '24 Info Session (note that two credits in any combination of Econ 495, 496, 493, and 494 are required)
The Department of Economics offers two possible honors distinctions:
Distinction (or High Distinction) in Economics
- Student has a minimum 3.3 GPA both in economics and overall; has completed five electives, commensurate with an undergraduate A.B./B.A. or B.S. degree, with courses from Path 1 and 2 counted toward electives; and, has completed an honors paper with a minimum grade of B+ and has been approved by the Honors Committee for qualification of graduation with distinction.
- Student will be awarded High Distinction upon graduation if s/he has satisfied all of the requirements for Distinction and her/his honors thesis is selected by the Honors Committee from among the nominated theses.
Distinction in Research
- Student has completed an honors thesis and has been approved by the Honors Committee for qualification of graduation with distinction. There is no minimum GPA requirement.
A fundamental feature of research, as opposed to classroom learning, is that it is independent and self-motivated. At the same time, researchers continually share thoughts and ideas with colleagues. At Duke Economics, as at most research-oriented economics departments, field workshops are one of the more consistent and structured venues through which research ideas are developed, disseminated, dissected, and refined.
Part of our efforts to create a "meaningful, sustained research experience" for our undergraduates includes participation in a research community of peers and mentors. We introduce this tradition to undergraduates with our Honors Research Workshops (ECON 495S, 496S). The Honors Research Workshops encourage the interchange of research ideas, problems, and strategies among undergraduates and faculty that is similar to the sort of interchange that occurs between graduate students and faculty. Resultant research projects may be written up as honors theses.
For the Honors Research Workshops to be productive, there has to be a certain amount of shared or common knowledge among participants. The Department of Economics offers key field courses intended to deepen students' understanding of specialized topics that may have been only briefly mentioned in economics core courses. Field courses build upon the basic economic principles learned in the core sequence but emphasize studying existing work within a particular field, as well as learning the skills appropriate to particular types of research. Field courses are useful for students to gain deeper knowledge within topics that may have been only briefly mentioned in core courses. Field courses are also necessary preparation for anyone who wishes to undertake future research as a junior or senior. These field courses teach students how to approach a particular topic and properly frame the questions they wish to answer. For example, someone who might be interested in doing research on job discrimination should take a course in Labor and Public Finance.
Each semester the department will move toward providing the full spectrum of key field courses and research workshops. For a full listing of economics courses offered each term, see DukeHub.