Resource Guide
Research Project Ideas in Economics for High School Students
Specific, answerable questions across microeconomics, macro policy, development, and markets, with guidance on grounding a project in real evidence.
How to Use This List
Economics rewards precision, and so do economics admissions. The weakest projects take a vast, contested question, "is capitalism good?", and produce opinion. The strongest take a specific, evidence-rich question and reason about it carefully, the way an economist actually works.
Use the questions below as starting points to narrow. A real advantage of economics is the wealth of open data, from the World Bank, the ONS, and Our World in Data, that lets a student test a claim against evidence rather than only argue about it. Our guide to writing a research question shows how to sharpen one.
Choose a Method Before a Topic
The method is the decision that determines whether a project can actually be finished; the topic is secondary. Every question below is tagged with one of these four routes, its difficulty, and the finished output it should produce.
Public dataset
Economics is unusually well served by free data: the ONS, the World Bank, FRED and Our World in Data all publish series you can test a claim against. The skill being shown is careful handling of real numbers, not collection.
A spreadsheet, one series, and every chart made by you rather than copied.
Literature review
Read six to ten papers on one narrow question and set out what they collectively establish, including where they disagree and why. In economics the disagreements are usually about identification, which is the interesting part.
Google Scholar, and a question narrow enough that ten papers can answer it.
Policy analysis
Take one policy and evaluate it against its own stated goals using published evaluations. Sits between evidence and politics, which is where most economics graduates actually work.
Government, IFS or OBR evaluation reports, which are free and public.
Applied case analysis
Take one market or firm and test a standard framework against it. Useful when the general question is unanswerable but a single case is tractable.
One market you can describe precisely, and a framework you are willing to see fail.
Ideas by Sub-Field
Microeconomics & behaviour
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What does behavioural-economics research reveal about how "nudges" change real-world decisions?
Literature review Intermediate
Output: A review of published nudge trials separating those that replicated from those that did not
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How does the framing of a price or choice measurably affect what people buy?
Literature review Accessible
Output: A synthesis of framing experiments with the effect sizes stated rather than the anecdotes
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How well does standard rational-choice theory explain a specific everyday decision?
Literature review Intermediate
Output: An essay testing the standard model against one documented decision, naming where it breaks
Macroeconomics & policy
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What does the evidence say about the employment effects of a specific minimum-wage change?
Literature review Advanced
Output: A review built around why well-designed studies disagree, anchored on Card and Krueger and the replies to it
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How effective are carbon taxes at reducing emissions, according to existing studies?
Policy analysis Advanced
Output: A comparison of two or three carbon pricing schemes against their own stated targets
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What can public data reveal about the relationship between inflation and a chosen policy lever?
Public dataset Intermediate
Output: A time-series analysis from ONS or FRED data, with your own charts and stated limits
Development & inequality
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What does the research on microfinance show about its effect on poverty?
Literature review Advanced
Output: A review weighing the randomised trials against the earlier observational claims
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How does access to education relate to long-run income, according to development studies?
Public dataset Intermediate
Output: A cross-country analysis using World Bank indicators that addresses the endogeneity problem directly
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What explains the persistence of regional inequality within a single country?
Public dataset Advanced
Output: A within-country analysis using national statistics, testing two competing explanations against each other
Markets, trade & finance
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How efficient are financial markets really, and what do behavioural anomalies reveal?
Literature review Advanced
Output: A review of the anomalies literature and which effects survive transaction costs
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What does the evidence say about the economic effects of a specific trade agreement?
Policy analysis Intermediate
Output: A before-and-after study of one agreement using published trade data
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How do network effects shape competition in digital markets?
Applied case analysis Intermediate
Output: A case study of one digital market tested against the standard competition framework
Evidence Over Opinion
The defining move in a strong economics project is to convert an opinion into a testable claim, and then weigh the evidence honestly, including the evidence that cuts against your initial view. An economist who only finds support for what they already believed is not doing economics.
This is also where a good mentor matters most: helping a student judge whether a dataset can actually support a claim, whether a correlation is being mistaken for cause, and where the strongest counter-argument lies. Those judgements are exactly what a PPE or economics interview probes.
Free PDF
Take the 50 strongest ideas with you
A free PDF with fifty of these questions tagged by method and difficulty, the output each should produce, and the feasibility checklist we apply before recommending any project. We email it to you, along with occasional guidance worth having. No obligation, and your details are not passed to anyone.
Taking a Question Further
Economics overlaps with politics, psychology, and data science, and the best projects often sit on one of those borders. For the wider context, see our Economics & Business field page, our companion guides to research project ideas in psychology and politics and international relations, and our broader research project ideas across all six fields. When you are ready to turn a question into a finished project with a mentor who works in the field, the Research Scholar programme is built for exactly that.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have studied economics to do an economics research project?
No. Many strong projects come from students arriving through mathematics, history, or current affairs. What matters is curiosity about how people, markets, and institutions behave. A mentor builds the necessary concepts as part of the work.
Can an economics project use real data without advanced statistics?
Yes. Plenty of strong projects analyse public datasets with straightforward methods, or are argument-driven evaluations of a policy or theory. Where more statistics would help, a mentor introduces exactly what the project needs.
What makes an economics research question strong?
A strong question is specific and answerable with available evidence. "Does immigration help the economy" is too broad; "what does the evidence say about the effect of a specific minimum-wage change on local employment" is something you can actually investigate.
Is an economics project useful for PPE or economics applications?
Very. These courses are demanding and oversubscribed, and reward students who can frame a question, handle evidence, and reason with discipline. A focused project demonstrates all three and gives an applicant something genuine to discuss at interview.
Now placing students for the October start. Places in each field are limited by mentor availability. We review applications on a rolling basis.
ScholarBridge matches students with doctoral-level or equivalent research mentors across six academic fields. Every project is student-led and completed to a standard the student can stand behind in any university interview.
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