A Day at the Fed

On Wednesday, March 21, 2007, Dr. Saranna R. Thornton, Elliott Professor of Economics, took six of her students on a field trip in Richmond, VA, to visit the Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve System, also called simply the Fed, is the central bank of the United States. As such, the Fed has three essential and very important responsibilities that have an affect not only in the United States but also the worldwide economic climate. Full Story...

Coyne Wins Award

The Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders is pleased to announce that it has awarded its twelfth $10,000 prize to Dr. Christopher J. Coyne, Assistant Professor of Economics at Hampden-Sydney College, for a series of related articles on the influence of institutional arrangements on entrepreneurship and international development; and on weak and failed states and the problem of nation building.  In these articles Coyne applies an Austrian economics perspective to argue that just as successful economies and polities can not be built from whole cloth according to rational constructivist principles, there are limits to what even well-intentioned governments can do to build free markets and free political orders elsewhere.  The legal institutions, the understanding of the rule of law, the definitions of property rights, upon which entrepreneurial activity depend do not transfer easily, if at all, from one nation to another.  Similarly, according to Coyne, we find that nation building has a chance for success only in areas that already have strong national institutions and histories that encourage and protect entrepreneurial activity for the nation builders to draw upon. Full Story

Hampden-Sydney Hosts Walter Williams

On Tuesday, February 27, Hampden-Sydney College will host Dr. Walter Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. His topic is The Role of Government in a Free Society. Full Story...

Coyne Named North American Editor

Dr. Christopher J. Coyne, Assistant Professor of Economics at Hampden-Sydney College, has been named North American Editor of The Review of Austrian Economics.
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Thomas Melton '06 Interns at JP Morgan

Tom Melton ’06 profited from an internship in New York City

WHILE MILLIONS of American college students were spending their summer either vacationing or in summer jobs that had little relevance to what they would be doing later on in life, Thomas Melton ’06 was working long hours and assisting high net-worth individuals in investing their money, as one of a handful of summer interns for JP Morgan’s division of wealth asset management.

Tom is an economics major who wants a career at a major financial institution like Morgan. He is certain that the internship will prove crucial to getting the job he wants. “You can’t get a first-year analyst position without an internship,” he says. “I didn’t want to do a generic internship, and I didn’t want to go with a smaller name. I really wanted to get out there with the major players.” Full Story...

Change in Japan's taste-a major impact in US economy

Miller Ruff on International Finance--China may be the center of all Asian news, but one cannot overlook the recent economic recovery of the second-largest economy in the world, the Japanese economy. Japan's economy has finally begun to show signs of substantial growth after many years of stagnation. Full Story...

A Winning Combination? An Empirical Investigation of Collegiate Athletics