Faculty Scholarship

DR. KRISTINA TERKUN, VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS

THE RESEARCH interests of Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Kristina Terkun lie in the fields of the economics of religion, sports economics, and industrial organization. While her earliest publication, “Road Warrior Booty: Prize Structures in Motorcycle Racing,” with Michael T. Maloney [Contributions to Economic Analysis and Policy: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 3 (2002)] focused on tournaments and the implications for pay for performance issues with an application to professional motorcycle road racing—and she plans to explore tournament issues further in the future—more recently she has shifted to industrial organization applications in economic history.

With her colleagues at her alma mater, James Madison University, where she taught previously, she conducted research in the developing field of religion and economics. In the last year, she co-authored, with Robert Jerome, Robert Horn, and Bridget Butkevich, “Suboptimal Choices: The Trouble with Economic Advice,” which is pending publication in the Review of Political Economy. The paper focuses on rational choice theory and demonstrates how the notion of forgiveness (inherent in the Judeo-Christian religious
tradition) can help to ease the transition for individuals struggling with their self-identity.
She is planning several related papers and also working on a monograph.

In addition, with Jerome and Horn she has co-authored “Life Among the Subecon: the Pon Farr and Koon Ut Kal If Ee Rituals,” a satire that is intended to offer some insight into the hiring process in an economics department. The paper was published in The Review of Radical Political Economics (Vol. 40: No. 2, 2007). Her papers can be accessed on
Google Scholar.

In addition to her B.A. from James Madison, Terkun earned a master’s and doctorate at Clemson University.