Grader/TA Positions

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Announcement: Thank you for your interest. All Spring 2024 grading positions have been filled. Please check back in late August if you are interested in grading for Fall 2024.
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The Economics Department provides graders/TAs for the following ECON course offerings as needed:  0111, 0150, 0155, 0207, 0211, 0212, 0229, 0250, 0255, 0260, 0265, and 0280. 

The economics grader/TA responsibilities may vary from one course to another. In general, graders could be tasked with any of the following responsibilities: grading problem sets, quizzes, review questions, and bonus material; reviewing grades for consistency; calculating scores; recording grades in Excel; alphabetizing papers.

Applicants must be organized, responsible, and dependable individuals, who are able to work with others as well as independently. A willingness to learn is essential, with an enthusiasm for the subject. Confidentiality is required and students will be required to sign a confidentiality statement.

Applicants must have completed the course they are applying to grade for with a grade of B+ or higher and have taken the course on Middlebury’s Vermont campus.

Applicants should apply prior to the beginning of each semester.

Hired students who wish to continue grading from one semester to the next need not reapply. However, they must email Amy Holbrook to notify her of their wish to be considered for the following semester whether for the same or a different course and/or instructor. Rehires are not guaranteed.

The Economics Department strives to place all qualified applicants; however, it is not always possible.

If you are interested in applying for a position as an ECON grader/TA, please first complete the Grading Application Supplemental information Google form, linked here.

The ECON grader/TA position will be posted on the College’s internal job board, Workable Referrals, in the month (minimum) prior to the term being hired for. Therefore, please check back here for the link during January term to apply for a spring position or in August to apply for a fall position.

Once the position is posted in Workable, you can type “econ” in the search bar on the top left to search for the position or enter the grading position number, 900463. Once you find the posting, hover your cursor over the title, then click “apply”  and complete your application. A cover letter and CV are not required for your application.

The Student Employment Office requires all student hiring to be processed through Workable (new as of Fall 2022). Students may not begin working until the hiring process is completed by Human Resources. With the new processing schedule all students start dates will be on a Monday.

Please visit the Student Employment Office site for information regarding required employment documents and training.

Please direct any questions you have regarding current openings or the position to Amy Holbrook at holbrook@middlebury.edu or 802-443-5327.

Questions relating to using Workable, completing employment forms, and time entry can be directed to HR@middlebury.edu.

Research Opportunities

Here you will find a periodically updated listing of openings for paid research assistantships with faculty along with instructions for applying. If you are interested in a research opportunity but no research assistantships are currently available, please check back on this page periodically for new postings. Most research assistantships are full-time positions in the summer. Summer positions are typically posted during the month of March.

Summer 2024 Research Opportunities

The positions listed below are the available “Jones Enrichment Summer Fellowships” for summer 2024. These fellowships provide opportunities for students to work with a faculty mentor in the department on research projects directed by the faculty member, for a period of 6 to 10 weeks (sometime between June 10 and August 16, 2024). Unless specified otherwise, these are full-time (40-hour/week) positions for in-person work on campus paying a stipend of $570/week. It is expected that full-time fellows will not hold another position during this period. The start and end dates will be determined together with the supervising professor. Continuing students in all classes are eligible, but preference will be given to students with a strong background in Economics.

To apply for the positions listed below please fill out the Google Form Survey at this link by Wednesday, March 27. Please indicate which positions you are most interested in on the form and in your letter of interest. Review of applications will begin on Thursday, March 28. Positions listed below are still open and will be removed from this site when filled.

 

Project Title: Earnings Inequality and Labor Market Power in Developing Countries

Supervising Professor: Germán Reyes

Project Description: There are RA opportunities for two projects. The first project focuses on understanding earnings inequality in developing countries by analyzing the relative contributions of worker productivity and firm pay-setting policies, using comprehensive data from Brazil. The second project investigates the extent of labor market power held by firms, its implications for wage inequality, and the returns to human capital, utilizing administrative data and insights from behavioral economics.

RA Tasks:

  • For Project 1: Develop programming code for applying and analyzing standard decomposition methodologies in labor economics, focusing on worker characteristics and firm policies. Write code to model internal labor market dynamics. Experience with Stata and Matlab preferred.
  • For Project 2: Assist in drafting research paper sections, analyze complex data sets, create figures and tables for results discussion, and conduct a thorough literature review to support the study’s objectives.

Prerequisites: Candidates should have a strong analytical background, proficiency in data analysis software (ECON 211, and experience using Stata for Project 1), and excellent writing and documentation skills (for Project 2). Interest in labor economics, earnings inequality, and firm market power is a plus, but not required.

Duration: 10 weeks

 

Project Title: Gender Outcomes over the Business Cycle

Supervising Professor: Zara Contractor and David Munro

Project Description: Women’s labor market outcomes have played an important role in growth and business cycles. However, data on women’s employment status start in only in 1976. In this project, we are constructing a novel dataset using historical unemployment claims to measure unemployment rate rates back to 1947. This will allow us to study employment outcomes by gender over business cycles before 1976, as well as how outcomes differ by state. We are also interested in using this dataset to study the increase in female labor force participation over states and time.

RA Tasks: The main role of the RA will be to digitize data from historical unemployment claims records. The RA will also help with other related tasks like the literature review.

Prerequisites: Attention to detail

Duration: 6 weeks for 20 hours/week. This position can be done remotely.

 

Project Title: Beyond Bretton Woods: Inspiring Finance for a Just and Sustainable Future

Supervising Professor: Jonathan Isham and Frank Van Gansbeke

Project Description: In 2024, on the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference, six trends will converge: the dramatic reduction of poverty worldwide; the expansion of global inequality; the acceleration of the climate crisis; unchecked biodiversity loss; augmented geopolitical tension between the West and emerging powers around China; and untenable global leverage marred by deep fault lines across the financial system. Over the next 80 years, how can the global community build rules of the game for a new “inspiring finance” that spreads prosperity, reduces inequality and conflict, and promotes sustainability?

In our ongoing teaching and research, we are addressing these and related questions with other leaders of the Beyond Bretton Woods network, which has grown out of discussions among elected officials, financiers, scholars, and development practitioners of the Global South and the Global North. We now plan to write a book – the working title is “Inspiring Finance” – with World Bank colleague Vinod Thomas. The goal of this research is to develop and disseminate a vision for the reorientation of the global financial architecture – inclusive of private banks, the IMF and the World Bank, and the world’s central banks – toward a nature-centric and pro-poor agenda.

Our research methodology has four components. First, we are reviewing the current literature on the history of the Bretton Woods Framework, changes in human development over the last century, the rise of the climate crisis, and new directions of international finance and economics. Second, we are gathering a range of data on the most important global trends over the last 80 years, including household income, education and literacy, health care outcomes and access, and civic and political freedom. Third, we are assembling a group of experts in the fields of economics, finance, and technology to interview, built around the question “What needs to change?” Finally, we are collecting stories from many parts of the world about how people are living in this age of polycrisis. 

RA Tasks: The two RAs will help us to assemble, analyze, and present these quantitative and qualitative data, taking the lead in the statistical and geographical analysis of the relevant data. Our goal is that by the end of the summer, this diverse set of material – in the form of references, tables, charts, and maps – will be ready for the book draft that we will submit to our publisher.

Prerequisites: Statistical coursework, at least through a basic course. GIS coursework preferred.

Duration: 10 weeks.

 

Project Title: Agricultural Trade and Adaptation to Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa

Supervising Professor: Obie Porteous

Project Description: This project investigates the extent to which increased agricultural trade – between regions of sub-Saharan Africa affected differently by climate change and between African countries and the rest of the world – can help offset the anticipated negative effects of climate change on local agricultural yields across the continent. This is a multi-year project that is ending this summer, so it is in the final stages.

RA Tasks: The RA will primarily work on putting together a replication package for the main paper of the project (available here), which will include detailed instructions and all of the data and model files necessary to run all simulations in the paper. As part of this work, the RA will explore ways to re-program and package the model in as simple and transparent a way as possible so as to maximize its potential use by other researchers. This may include re-programming the model from GAMS into R, establishing an open access GitHub repository, etc.

Prerequisites: ECON 155 (or equivalent). ECON 111, ECON 234, and IPEC 240 or ECON 344 are helpful but not required. Computer programming experience is essential, with strong computer science background preferred. Organizational skills and attention to detail are essential. 

Duration:  Ideally 7 weeks (June 10 – July 26) but with some flexibility.