URAP Project Descriptions

Creating a Modern, Sustainable, Caring Economy

Clair Brown, Professor
Economics

Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.

This URAP team focuses on the Sustainable, Shared-Prosperity Policy Index (SSPI) that pulls together the data for over 50 policies that structure how markets operate, creates government programs (such as health care, education, housing) and protects human rights, and supports healthy ecosystems and protects the environment.
This year the SSPI team will create a dynamic dataset based on API data.Do more analyze on how policies vary across regions and across countries, and explore the relationship between specific SSPI policy indicators and performance outcomes.

Read an earlier working paper on the SSSPI to see if this topic interests you. The working paper plus the tables file and the data set are available in this public google drive to view: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1NmlryyGmeSHVGrjskPWp01H4oOkLmkrc

This project is based on Prof. Brown’s book, Buddhist Economics, which presents an economic system that supports a comfortable, meaningful life in a sustainable world. Different aspects of this framework are being investigated with additional data collection and analysis.

Some of the questions we ask are:
How will specific policies, such as more progressive taxes or shorter work weeks or universal health care and higher education, affect economic performance, including environmental impact, distribution of income, and quality of life?
How do sustainability policies in a SSPI system compare to today’s climate policies?

Role: The overall learning outcomes: improved critical thinking skills; learning how to collect and evaluate data; and learning how to find, evaluate, and summarize articles on specific topics; learning how to analyze the relationship between critical processes and key variables.

The specific tasks include [Students will receive guidance on best practice for each specific task]:
- Students are expected to read background literature, in order to understand the basic economic framework and issues for the research.
- Students will learn about the conceptual framework of sustainability, welfare measurement, inequality metrics, statistical measurement of relationships.
- Students will be undertaking independent, guided research, seeking the most up-to-date findings relevant for application and incorporation into the research question. Data includes both qualitative and quantitative information. For quantitative data, students will be undertaking data collection and organization, seeking the best available data for specific variables.
- The student will learn how to find multiple kinds of data and to navigate the practical limits of data availability, incorporating methods such as proxy measures, indexing, and data filling. They will also gain experience in assessing the reliability of data sources, and they will search a wide range of publicly available data.

Qualifications: Qualifications: The URAP teams will have required weekly meetings with Professor Brown, to go over what is being done and plan what to do next.
Students should be able to work independently, with critical thinking and initiative, and be good time managers. Students should work well on a team. The students must be conscientious and able to organize and document their work. Also students are required to be able to navigate websites with the focus on obtaining data. Some basic Excel is used. Database, data scraping, website or coding are useful. Students with background and interest in economics, political science, and sociology will benefit from these projects. Interest in social well-being and sustainability is required.
Weekly team meeting time: Wednesdays, 4-5 pm [MANDATORY. Do not apply if you cannot meet with team on Wed, 4-5 pm]
Weekly Hours: 6-8 (2 units) or 9-11 hrs (3 units)
Positions
Data analyst (5)
Collect, clean, and maintain data and infrastructure
Work closely with me
Experience:
High level experience programming in python
Comfortability in cleaning data across file types and data consistencies
Experience with API data collection
Knowledge of database management systems (we use mongoDB)
Understanding of web frameworks (we use flask)
Goals: learn backend structure, optimize future collection, comprehensive understanding of SSPI data across sources, ability to critique and improve SSPI data lifecycle
Interview assignment:
Prior to interview: we send them assignment to collect + clean data from some source API (UN SDG, IEA, etc.)
Perhaps we ask them an open-ended question about constructing an indicator
Or perhaps we ask them to replicate an existing indicator (maybe ALTNRG)
Provide description, indicator numerical computation, goalposts
During interview: explain process for collecting, cleaning
Advise them to be prepared to explain process, considerations made (especially if we ask them to develop an indicator from scratch)
What were some problems you encountered while attempting to complete the assignment? How did you troubleshoot?
Web developer (1)
Experience:
Work with data visualization
Tristan??
Goals: help to bring dynamic SSPI visualizations to life on the website, make sure SSPI is putting its best (public) foot forward, integrate features like blog posts, methodology section (+ indicator table), and about us (+ SSPI background and goals)
Task before interview: look at working website and learn about the SSPI data, and the SSPI’s goals as a whole
Interview: offer suggestions about how the website can best present the SSPI to the public in user friendly way
This is a two semesters research project, and students are expected to continue our research on California bills and policies in the Spring 2025 semester.
The weekly team meetings are Mandatory.

Hours: 9-11 hrs

Off-Campus Research Site: Both On-Campus and Off-Campus Research Site: Weekly one-hour meetings are on Professor's zoom or in-person at IRLE [site of professor's research office}, 2521 Channing Way.

Social Sciences

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