Student Grants
Check out our "News and Events" page for information on two exciting new initiatives from the Political Economy Project: Our faculty co-teaching grants for "Exploring Disagreements in the Classroom," and our student grants for "Exploring Disagreements in Independent Research."
The Disagreements Initiative
The PEP invites applications from Dartmouth undergraduates who seek to undertake focused research lightly advised by a Dartmouth faculty member. The aim of the program is to draw students outside their "comfort zones" by inviting them to honestly engage interpretations and methodologies across the spectrum of informed opinion on their chosen topics of research. The research should therefore address rival theories pertinent to the student's area of interest, leading to a deeper understanding of the various sides of the topic. The disagreements--which need not be the only or even the primary point of the research--may concern, for example, the content of scholarly findings, research methods, or interpretive orientations.
These fellowships need not culminate in any written work. They aim instead to help students broaden and deepen their education outside the classroom by devising an independent agenda of directed reading. Proposals may be made on any topic, as long as it is related to the broad mission of the Political Economy Project.
The deadline for applications will generally fall at the end of the sixth or seventh week of the term before the fellowship begins.
HOW TO APPLY
Proposals should include (i) a description of your project; (ii) an email from the professor agreeing to supervise it, which briefly describes your project and its duration, and (iii) a short summary of rival arguments that the research will equip you to understand.
More specifically, you should explain briefly how you conceived of the research idea, how it addresses themes of interest to the Political Economy Project, and how you expect it to contribute to your liberal-arts education. Please include a bibliography of no more than one single-spaced page, listing some of the sources you expect to consult during the grant period, as well as a project title, a transcript, and a CV. Compensation will be $18.00 for up to 100 hours of work. Up to two fellowships will be funded per term.
In the term after you have completed the fellowship, you can expect to send a 1-page summary of your fellowship experience to the PEP program coordinator and your faculty sponsor.
Since this program aims to foster habits of inquiry that are genuinely independent of extensive supervision, you are only required to meet with your faculty sponsor once: namely, when preparing a plan of research before sending in the application. (You are of course welcome to meet with your faculty sponsor more often if that is mutually agreeable).
Email all application materials as Word attachments, as well as any questions you may have about the program, to the PEP program coordinator: henry.c.clark@dartmouth.edu. Indicate in the subject line that you are applying for this fellowship. Late applications will not be accepted; notifications will be sent within two or three weeks after the deadline.*
*If you are applying for a leave term grant, consider the impact on your D-plan. There is a penalty for changing from a residence term to a leave term after the registrar's deadline, but there is no penalty for changing from a leave term to a residence term. Information about D-plan deadlines can be found here.
Past Winners
The first round of grant winners at a dinner in Pine on Feb 6, 2020. From left to right: Prof. Henry C. Clark, Ivo Erben, Amanda Li, Iris Wang, and Jillian Freeman.
Disagreements Initiative Past Winners
F26
Lila Li ('29), "Forged Under Fire: The Architecture of Ukraine's Wartime Military Modernization"
Luna Zhang ('29), "Does the Community Principle Require Socialism? On a Civic Alternative"
X26
Anahita Chowdhary ('28), "What Built the Housing Crisis, and Who Takes the Blame?"
Eliza Robinson ('28), "Lifeline or Dead End? The Effect of Remittances on Sending Countries"
S26
Christian Chantayan ('26), "State-run Lotteries: Gambling on Citizen Welfare?"
William Kiker ('29), "On the Backburner for a Century: Controversies in Land Taxation"
W26
Arian Chimenson ('28), "Institutional Path Dependence and Market Reforms in the Late Soviet Union"
Daphna Fineberg ('26), "Private Military Concerns in Counter-insurgency Campaigns"
F25
Luke Aloe ('27), "Do U.S. Tariffs on China Achieve Strategic Economic and National Security Goals"
Phoebe Kim ('28), "How Legal Interpretive Theory Shapes the Welfare State"
X25
Anisha Singhal ('27), "The Next Transition: How AI Will Transform Economic Models"
Rishi Thakker ('27), "Labor Rights in International Trade Agreements"
S25
Sophia Kohmann ('28), "Warzone: The Role of Civilians in Conflict"
Caroline Mahony ('25), "Foreign Aid: Necessary Intervention or Resource Curse for the Global Poor?"
W25
Xintian (Judy) Wang (UCL exchange), "Is Government the Creator of Prosperity or the Obstacle? Evidence from China"
Kate Yeo ('25), "Exploring the Empirical Feasibility of a 'Just Energy Transition'"
F24
Connor Allen ('25), "Private Equity: Plunder or Progress?"
Clara Goulding ('25), "Beyond Interest: Comparing Islamic and Traditional Banking Systems in Fostering Economic Development."
X24
Ahaan Jindal ('27), "Birth Rates and Balance Sheets: Charting China's Economic Trajectory in Light of Falling Fertility Rates."
Carly Retterer ('24), "Capitalist Peace Theory: Cooperation and Conflict."
The Independent Research Fellowship
Before the Disagreements Initiative, the PEP offered funding in a program called the "Independent Research Fellowship" that was designed to allow qualified students to initiate their own program of directed reading under the light guidance of a faculty mentor.
Under that program, the PEP offered some three dozen independent reading grants to Dartmouth students, which they utilized to explore an extraordinarily rich variety of topics, including FDA reform, East European dissident literature, Chinese-Taiwanese comparative development, private defense agencies, and the British leader Benjamin Disraeli, to name only a few. (See our YouTube interview on the latter here.
Below is a list of past recipients in that program.
W24
Malcolm Mahoney ('26), “The AI Revolution’s Impact on Markets and Labor”
Marta Hulieska ('25), “Jewish-Ukrainian History Through the Lens of Memory Studies”
X23
Teddy Roberts ('26), “Entrepreneurial Innovation and the Danish Welfare State”
W23
Matt Capone ('24), “Bytespeed is the New Lightspeed: Globalizing IT as a Metric of Developmental Health"
Ryan Schwartz ('23), “From Wall Street to Main Street: Does Equity Ownership and Retail Investor Identity Shape Policy Preferences?”
X22
Arne Grette ('25), “America’s Public Lands: A Political Economy Approach”
Ben Vagle ('22), “Balance of Economic Terror: The United States, China, and the Economic Costs of Conflict”
Ella von Baeyer ('24), “Economics, Parenthood, and the Welfare State”
X21
Nikolaos Vichos ('24), “US Foreign Policy Centralization and Democratic Peace Theory: How Executive Domination Affects the Causal Mechanisms”
John Taylor ('24), “Private Military Companies”
Kaya Colakoglu ('24), “Major Debates in the History of Marxist Economic Thought”
S21
Amy Hu ('21), “Does Earned Wage Access Reduce Payday Lending?”
Anya Sorensen ('22), “Market Innovations in the Arab Gulf”
W21
Will Frohlich ('22), “Understanding Partisanship: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”
Victor Wu ('22), “The Political Economy of Ecological Economics”
F20
Blake McGill ('22), “Political Misinformation and the First Amendment”
X20
David Yin ('22), “Decentralized Systems of Accountability: From Guilds to Blockchains”
Daniel Bring ('22), “The History and Political Economy of the American Volunteer Military”
Max Bessler ('22), “Economic Weaponry”
Sana Nadkarni ('22), “The Economics, Politics, and Ethics of Corporate Fraud”
Victoria Xiao ('22), “Dissident Writers of Central and Eastern Europe”
Michael Morck ('21), “Intergenerational Ethics and Catastrophic Problems”
Ishaan Jajodia ('20), “The Moral Economy”
Nishi Jain ('21), “Gambling with Government Failure: Reconciling the Invisible Hand of the Market with the Long Arm of the State”
Wendy Hu ('21), “Investigating Economic Development, Social Stratification, and the Prospects for Democratization in China”
Jonah Hirsch ('22), “Hegel on Recognition”
Jeremy Hadfield ('21), “Artificial Intelligence and the Imagination Economy”
Christopher de Grandpré, “Out from Under the Nuclear Umbrella: Alternative Deterrence Strategies”
Cody Gibson ('21), “Race and Conceptual Engineering”
India Cutler ('21), “The Political Economy of Commercial Space Flight in the Twenty-first Century”
Miles Castoro ('21), “Comparing Platonic Ideas and Influences: From Neoplatonist to Catholic Saints”
W19
Jillian Freeman ('21), “The History of Economic Thought”
Ivo Erben ('20), “An Inquiry into the History of Economics”
Amanda Li ('22), “An Investigation of Ethical and Legal Philosophy”