Christie Byun

Dr. Christie Byun joined Wabash College in 2007. Her research interests include the theory of habit formation and how it influences household consumption. She also works on research in environmental economics using the contingent valuation method, and is interested in free market environmentalism and how markets can be used to determine efficient allocations of natural resources. Her teaching areas include Principles of Economics, Econometrics, Statistics for the Social Sciences, Environmental Economics, Economics and Public Policy, Economics and Microsoft Excel, and Senior Seminar.

She is the co-chair of the Freshman Tutorial program and has taught a tutorial called the Economics of the Popular Music Industry. Students in the tutorial examined the question of how musical creativity survives and adapts in a constantly evolving music business. The tutorial included a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio where students had the opportunity to learn about popular music, its history and its diverse roots. Dr. Byun is interested in how the business side of the music industry and music technology can influence the process of creating music and has a book, The Economics of the Popular Music Industry forthcoming on Palgrave Press. 

Dr. Byun strongly believes in the power of immersion learning and has led an immersion trip for her Environmental Economics class to Alaska, where they met with representatives from the oil and natural resource industries, conservation groups, and Native groups. Dr. Byun is committed to collaborative research with students and has sponsored several students’ research presentations at various conferences both on and off campus. She has also worked on interdisciplinary research with her husband, Dr. Ethan Hollander of the Political Science department, on the causes of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East. She is a board member of the Indiana Academy of Social Sciences.

In her spare time, Prof. Byun enjoys yoga, knitting, slacklining, and rock climbing. She also likes listening to music of various genres including progressive rock, classical, baroque, and jangly Britpop. Her three favorite bands are XTC, King Crimson, and the Beastie Boys.

Ph.D. in Economics, University of California, Riverside
B.A. in Economics, University of California, Berkeley

ECO 101 — Principles of Economics
ECO 251 — The Economic Approach with Microsoft Excel
ECO 253 — Introduction to Econometrics

ECO 232 — Economics and Public Policy

ECO 234 — Introduction to Environmental Economics

ECO 292 — Intermediate Macroeconomics

ECO 377 — Environmental Economics Seminar

ECO 401— Senior Seminar

The Financial Crisis of 2007 – 08
Environmental Economics
Monetary Policy Since the Financial Crisis

Division III—252 Statistics for the Social Sciences
Freshman Tutorial – The Economics of the Popular Music Industry

The Economics of the Popular Music Industry, Palgrave Press (forthcoming)

“The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Economics 101: Do Active Learning Exercises Correlate with Student Performance?” (under review)

“Explaining the Intensity of the Arab Spring”, co-authored with Dr. Ethan Hollander (under review)

“Contingent Valuation and Semiparametric Estimation of the Willingness to Pay for Water Quality: A Case of Sugar Creek” (work in progress)

“The Coase Theorem and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act”

• Midwest Economics Association Annual Meeting 2014
• Eastern Economics Association Annual Meeting 2014
• Indiana Academy of Social Sciences Annual Meeting, 2013

“Teaching the Coase Theorem and the ANCSA in Environmental Economics”

• Midwest Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2013

“Economics of the Popular Music Industry”

• Wally Tunes, A Wabash Symposium on Music and the Liberal Arts, 2014
• Indiana Academy of Social Sciences Annual Meeting 2014

“Complements and Substitutes for Digital Music Downloads”

• Wabash College Division 3 Colloquium, 2013

“Report from the Front: Successes and Failures of Innovative Teaching Methods”

• Midwest Economics Association Annual Meeting 2014

“Explaining the Intensity of the Arab Spring” (co-authored with Dr. Ethan Hollander)

• Midwest Economics Association Annual Conference 2013
• Western Economics Association Annual Conference 2012
• Indiana Academy of Social Sciences Annual Meeting, 2012

“Economic Valuation of the Water Quality in Sugar Creek”

• Midwest Economics Association Annual Conference, March 2011
• Indiana Academy of Social Sciences Annual Meeting, 2010
• Western Economic Association Annual Conference, July 2010

“A View from a Liberal Arts Institution”

• Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession Panel, Midwest Economics Association Conference Meeting, 2013

“Asian Studies and the Liberal Arts”

• Asian Studies Development Program Annual Conference, July 2010

“Habit Formation and Household Consumption:  A Semiparametric Panel Data Analysis”

• Midwest Economics Association Annual Conference, March 2007
• Western Economic Association International Annual Conference, July 2006

“Optimal Taxation with Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses”

• Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Seminar, January 2007

“The Coase Theorem and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act”, forthcoming in the Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research

“Habit Formation and Household Consumption: A Semiparametric Approach”, Advances in Economics and Business, 2013
“Economic Valuation of the Water Quality in Sugar Creek”, Journal of the Indiana Academy of Social Sciences, 2013

“A Model of Relative Consumption”, Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Economics Association Annual Meeting, 2013

“Utility Functions” Entry for the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 2^nd Edition, 2007