I. Outcomes

• Graduate students will understand how to identify and motivate interesting and policy- relevant topics for study.
• Graduate students will understand how to use economic theory to generate testable hypotheses about economic relationships that have practical relevance to the business community and/or public policy.
• Graduate students will be able to summarize previous research findings from the scholarly literature.
• Graduate students will understand how to use state of the art econometric methods to test hypotheses about economic relationships and to make business and/or public-policy recommendations.
• Graduate students will possess effective communication skills. They will understand how to write reports and give presentations to disseminate research findings to business leaders, experts in the field, and to a broader audience.

II. Assessment of Expected Outcomes

    A. Graduate students will obtain a grade of B or better in the graduate capstone course (Economics 595).

        One assessment of expected outcomes will take place in a capstone course (Economics 595, Current Research in Economics). A grade of “B” or better         in the capstone course indicates that the student has satisfactorily met the MA program objectives. The following are the specific tools that will be used to         assess whether students have achieved the expected outcomes of the MA program.

	Graduate students will make three forty-minute presentations on scholarly articles published over the last three years in Contemporary Economic Policy or a comparable journal.
	Students will be expected to demonstrate command of the economic theory and econometric methods used by the authors of the published article. Students will be expected to demonstrate command of the economic theory and econometric methods used by the authors of the published article.   Students will be expected to convey the business or policy relevance of the published article.
	Graduate students will prepare one-page critiques of one of the three class presentations made each week.
	Graduate students will use a statistical package to replicate econometric estimates using a data set supplied by the instructor.
	Graduate students replicate the empirical results from an article in Contemporary Economic Policy or comparable journal, write up the results as a scholarly article, and make a class presentation.
	Graduate students will attend departmental research seminars and write a 3-page summary of one of the presentations.

    B. A second assessment of expected outcomes will take place in the comprehensive examinations and the thesis.  

	A graduate student will pass comprehensive examinations in microeconomic theory, macroeconomic theory, and econometrics.
	OR
	A graduate student will complete and defend a thesis.