Meg Blume-Kohout

Assistant Professor

Economics

Contact

Email

mblumeko@gettysburg.edu

Phone

(717) 337 - 6659

Box

Campus Box 0391

Address

339 Carlisle St.
Room 108
300 North Washington St.
Gettysburg, PA 17325-1400

Education

PhD Pardee RAND Graduate School, 2009
MS University of California, Berkeley, 2002
BA Williams College, 1996

Academic Focus

Applied Econometrics, Public Policy Analysis, Health Economics, Science Policy, STEM Higher Education and Workforce, Entrepreneurship

Government legislation, policies, and regulations—however well-intentioned—often result in unintended consequences. Professor Blume-Kohout is a data scientist qua economist who employs theory and quantitative modeling approaches drawn from multiple disciplines—economics, psychology, sociology, statistics, and computer science—to answer public policy questions. Her research examines how government interventions impact STEM workforce participation, higher education, scientific R&D efforts and innovation, and entrepreneurial outcomes.

Courses Taught

This course develops the language of mathematics in the context of economics. The course considers the mathematics and economic applications of equilibrium, slopes and derivatives, differentials, optimization (maximizing profits or utility and minimizing costs or expenditures), constrained optimization (e.g., maximizing utility subject to the budget constraint), and integration. Applications include problems in consumer and producer theory, general equilibrium, welfare economics, growth and discounting, oligopoly behavior, game theory, statistics, and econometrics. Prerequisite: Econ 241, 243, 245, 249, 350 and at least one 300-level elective Econ course.

Article Training the Scientific Workforce: Does Funding Mechanism Matter? (with Dadhi Adhikari) Research Policy, 45(6): 1291-1303
Article Why Are Some Foreign-Born Workers More Entrepreneurial Than Others? Journal of Technology Transfer, 41(6): 1327-1353
Article Effects of Federal Research Funding on Formation of University-Firm Biopharmaceutical Alliances. (with Krishna Kumar, Christopher Lau, & Neeraj Sood) Journal of Technology Transfer, 40(5): 859-876
Article University R&D Funding Strategies in a Changing Federal Funding Environment. (with Krishna Kumar and Neeraj Sood) Science & Public Policy, 42(3): 355-368.
Article Are Graduate Students Rational? Evidence from the Market for Biomedical Scientists. (with John Clack) PLoS ONE 8(12): e82759.
Article Market Size and Innovation: Effects of Medicare Part D on Pharmaceutical Research and Development. (with Neeraj Sood) Journal of Public Economics, 97:327-336.
Article Does Targeted, Disease-Specific Public Research Funding Influence Pharmaceutical Innovation? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 31(3): 641-660.
Chapter “Gender and Postgraduate Training Environments in STEM Fields Entrepreneurship” In Gender and Entrepreneurial Activity, ed. Albert N. Link. Edward Elgar.