This project was challenging yet very rewarding. The fact that the research we conducted resulted in numbers and facts that have never been calculated before, and that will now hopefully contribute to future policy decisions, continues to amaze me.
Degree
Economics and Mathematics ’19
This project was challenging yet very rewarding. The fact that the research we conducted resulted in numbers and facts that have never been calculated before, and that will now hopefully contribute to future policy decisions, continues to amaze me.
One of the major reasons I was attracted to this project was because I wanted to learn more about how the US government works. I learned a great deal about the complex safety net that exists. I had no idea how big a part tax expenditures are in the welfare system. I was surprised to discover that tax expenditures actually exceed direct spending and how much of aid actually reaches the richest in the country.
While there were times that I questioned our methods and assumptions as being arbitrary and not having a strong enough reasoning behind them, as I dug deeper into other literature and research on the subject I realized that they all employ similar methods. Research in this area is complex and cannot be performed without making certain assumptions. Further, our work establishes methodologies and results that were not available until now and creates an opportunity to build on it to fine tune our findings.