Eastern Economic Association Holds 49th Annual Conference

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 proportionate amount of air pollution,” Machol said, “So by promoting these kinds of sustainable developments in low income areas, we’re able to reduce the pollution burden.”

Jimena González Ramírez, Ph.D., an economics professor at MC, also presented research at the conference. She had two presentations, the first being on different teaching styles.

“The first one was part of a teaching session, where I presented how to use media and team based learning application exercises to engage students in environmental economics courses,” González said. “I want to make sure that my teaching is engaging. It really shows the relevance of environmental economics and it shows the importance of the field within economics.”

As for the second study, González researched how people’s recreational use of parks may decrease with added park fees. She explains that her team uses data from an app that tracks the activity of disc golfers and trends in their visits to parks.

“‘Are the people who play disc golf going to [move] away from the park that has a fee?’,” González said. “We can answer this question because we have data from this app where the golfers can record their scores. So they give us all the data from 2015 to 2021 every day for both parks and then we can see if the people are substituting away from FDR because of the

González hopes that this study can bring disc golf near MC and to see how people living in a city can still interact with recreational activities.

“Part of the motivation was to study the sport, because it’s really not accessible for people in the city,” González said. “This is one out of many projects that I have connected to disc golf. Another one we want to figure out is a course closer to the city, so that people who don’t have cars can actually access it…whether it would be Van Cortlandt Park or another place within New York City.”

Another presenter at the conference, Danielle McGowan Vetere, a Manhattan College alumni, began her research for this project during her senior year.

“I first started working on it as an independent study with one of my Manhattan College professors, Professor Koimisis,” Vetere said.

Her research was based on macroeconomics, and how economic literacy can lead to unequal access to finances and other inequities. Specifically, she studied how the level of economic literacy shifts based on income status and the role of financial development.

“The focus of our research is a macroeconomic topic, specifically studying the link between remittances, economic literacy and income inequality,” Vetere said. “We study this link by investigating…the effect of remittances on income inequality…financial development plays a role in income inequality when the level of economic literacy is considered.”

Vetere continued that economic inequality needs to be studied further to determine how it impacts income inequality.

“Economic literacy is also important to study as it accounts for one’s knowledge of budgeting, financial markets, investing, how certain global events may affect markets, etc,” Vetere said.

Taking part in the Eastern Economic Association can benefit any Manhattan College student, as students can decide their own topic of research or learn something new.

“Having some MC students attend and present at an economics conference may encourage others to start research projects,” Vetere said.

“Overall, it’s not only an informative experience as you listen to other presenters and their research, but it’s also a chance for presenters to get experience describing their findings to an audience.”

The Eastern Economic Associations is open to any MC student who wishes to participate and share their research.