Hampden-Sydney's tight-knit community has consistently enriched the academic experience by fostering collaboration and mutual learning, which plays a key role in shaping good men and good citizens. This collaborative spirit also supports our dedicated faculty, enhancing their scholarly development and progress in their respective fields. In July, Associate Professor of Economics and Business Trey Carson, Professor of Economics and Business Anthony Carilli, and Professor of Economics and Business Justin Isaacs, alongside their colleague Rachel Behr LaRose from Xavier University, published an academic article in the Journal of Institutional Economics.
“Collaborating with my colleagues is a valuable experience,” Carson said. “We are able to discuss complex problems with real-world consequences. For this article, the core idea from our research highlights that informal public health institutions, like those in Orthodox Jewish communities, facilitate the pursuit of both public health and cultural or religious values. More importantly for economic science, our work indicates that local knowledge and informal rules play a vital role in resolving complex social dilemmas such as responding to pandemics, whereas formal rules might be less effective and potentially damaging. The final paper is the culmination of these conversations and research over the last three years.”
Discussing and collaborating on real-world scenarios can often pave the way for future research opportunities. This academic article follows previous collaborative work by Carson, Carilli, and Issacs on Covid-19 and the interactions between the values that people place on public health and other normative goals like personal freedom, which appeared in the Virginia Economic Journal and Vaccines.
“When we engage in research, attend conferences, and write papers with our colleagues, we are continuing our learning,” Issacs said. “This process helps us bring new ideas and new concepts back to the classroom. Writing papers, especially with our colleagues, provides a great opportunity for us to show our students not just our passion for the ideas, and the methodology of economics, but also the ways these ideas can apply to the real world.”
Collaborating with colleagues enhances the academic experience and builds on a robust foundation of knowledge. The committed faculty at Hampden-Sydney demonstrate the importance of continuous growth and understanding of real-world impacts, shaping the future of higher education as a whole while nurturing the development of good men and good citizens right here on the Hill.
Read the full academic article: Endogenous Public Health Responses in Orthodox Jewish Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic