Northwestern is a top research university and our undergraduates often play a role as research assistants in advancing the frontiers of knowledge.
Most students who work as research assistants are hired by professors who have had them in class. Successful candidates for research assistant positions have generally taken some level of econometrics, and it is often useful to have some background in coding. However, this is not universal for all projects.
Options for research within the Economics Department:
EconLab (read more below)
EconLab is a space for undergraduates to engage in part-time research and work closely with an Economics faculty member or PhD student.
There are several other ways of getting involved with research throughout the University. One is with Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research (IPR), which has opportunities to work on faculty projects during the summer. Some students also find research work with Kellogg faculty. There are funding resources and guidance on conducting research both in the summer and academic year through the Office of Undergraduate Research.
Many research assistant opportunities require knowledge of data processing tools like R and/or Python. If you are learning these programming languages for the first time or need to refresh your knowledge, many resources are available.
"Working with Avner taught me a lot about the research process and significantly improved my programming skills. I truly learnt a lot about methods in IO research and saw how it relates to things I learnt from class, this project was extremely important to my economics education!"
"I benefitted tremendously from Songlin's work. She scraped thousands of pages of photocopied tables containing granular meatpacking wage and employment data from 100-year-old Bureau of Labor Statistics reports into machine-readable files using Amazon Textract. She then cleaned and wrangled these data into rectangular datasets for analysis. This was painstaking and careful work requiring a lot of discipline and self-motivation. Songlin's work has allowed me to analyze a newly digitized historical dataset which can shed light on contemporary debates about the impact of antitrust enforcement on labor markets."
"I really enjoyed working with Matteo and Chris on their project studying the Nitrogen Revolution, which allowed me to delve into a period of economic and technological change. Using a combination of Stata, Python, and Textract, I digitized and analyzed agricultural data from weekly London publications, gaining hands-on experience with real-world research methodologies. This opportunity significantly enhanced my economics education at Northwestern as I applied the technical skills I had gained in the classroom to cutting-edge research. I also really appreciated Chris and Matteo's continuous mentorship and the insights they shared about their experiences as PhD students. Working on this research project certainly inspired me to pursue more research endeavors in the future!"
"Our research assistant played a key role in transcribing and cleaning a novel dataset on crop prices and quantities sold across Britain during the 19th century. This dataset was digitized and processed from government gazettes of the time using a combination of Python, Amazon Textract, and Stata. The resulting dataset will be instrumental in advancing our empirical analysis of the introduction and diffusion of guano in the context of 19th-century Britain."
"Irene helped us understand and prepare new data from administrative sources, which is essential for the next steps of our project. She very carefully documented data on firms' staffing patterns to create a consistent dataset across multiple years. Additionally, she critically reviewed and categorized a number of policy reports, turning them into data we can use to explore the mechanisms behind our findings."
“I worked as a research assistant with Professor Mar Reguant on a project assessing the cost of increased renewable generation on the grid, specifically comparing empirical results to engineering estimates. At the same time, I was also working on my senior honors thesis with Professor Reguant as my advisor. It was incredibly helpful to see first-hand how Professor Reguant approached the research process and to apply those skills to my independent work. The experience also helped me decide to pursue a PhD and research as a career. After graduation, I took a two year research fellowship in economics and this fall I am starting a PhD program at University of California, Berkeley's Agricultural and Resource Economics department to study energy economics.”
"I worked as a Research Assistant through EconLab for Professor Matt Notowidigdo during my Junior year. As a RA, I studied how changes in government employment affected local labor markets. The opportunity exposed me to the research process and gave me a chance to really dig into some data. The technical skills and appreciation for research cultivated during the experience proved very useful when writing my senior thesis and during my work as an RA for the Chicago Fed."
"I joined the EconLab when I was a junior at Northwestern, working as a research assistant for Prof. Mar Reguant. I worked with Mar on a variety of research topics, ranging from renewable energy policy in California to real-time electricity pricing in Spain. Getting exposure to rigorous economics research in such variety was a fantastic learning experience; I developed skills in coding, data analysis, and research management that I still turn back to after graduation. The research environment really fostered my growth - I had freedom to come up with my own solutions to problems, was encouraged to try things I hadn’t done before, and was given the resources and attention I needed to thrive. Mar was (and remains) a terrific mentor who always made time for me; someone interested in my personal growth as well as my professional development. She ended up serving as the advisor for my senior thesis. Thanks in large part to my experience working with Mar in the EconLab, I ended up joining a research lab focused on energy & environmental policy after graduation."
"As an EconLab research assistant, I helped Prof. Mar Reguant with a project on the effects of wind volatility on adjustment costs in Spanish electricity markets. This experience was incredibly valuable in developing my skills in Stata, data visualization, and causal inference, and I learned what it takes to conduct rigorous economics research. Whereas my econometrics coursework primarily used very clean data to illustrate concepts in data analysis, real world data can be very messy. By working as a research assistant, I gained experience in applying what I learned in my econometrics classes to messy, real data. My time in the EconLab helped me decide to pursue economics research full time after graduation as a research assistant, and I continue to rely on the skills I gained there on a daily basis. Most importantly, I met some really awesome people at the EconLab. Whether it was getting career advice from Mar as I prepared for graduation, or learning about machine learning clustering methods in our weekly staff meetings, the people I met taught me a lot, prepared me for my first job post graduation, and serve as strong mentors to this day."
“It has been very rewarding to share the research process with undergraduates while teaching them tools that complement the classroom materials. Several of my students have gone into a research path, and I like to think that their experience at the EconLab has given them insights on how to navigate the process.
The EconLab has also been very helpful in pushing my research forward.”
