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.
Ideas by Sub-Field
Microeconomics & behaviour
- ↳ What does behavioural-economics research reveal about how "nudges" change real-world decisions?
- ↳ How does the framing of a price or choice measurably affect what people buy?
- ↳ How well does standard rational-choice theory explain a specific everyday decision?
Macroeconomics & policy
- ↳ What does the evidence say about the employment effects of a specific minimum-wage change?
- ↳ How effective are carbon taxes at reducing emissions, according to existing studies?
- ↳ What can public data reveal about the relationship between inflation and a chosen policy lever?
Development & inequality
- ↳ What does the research on microfinance show about its effect on poverty?
- ↳ How does access to education relate to long-run income, according to development studies?
- ↳ What explains the persistence of regional inequality within a single country?
Markets, trade & finance
- ↳ How efficient are financial markets really, and what do behavioural anomalies reveal?
- ↳ What does the evidence say about the economic effects of a specific trade agreement?
- ↳ How do network effects shape competition in digital markets?
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.
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 guide to research project ideas in psychology, 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.
Summer cohort deadline · Applications due June 25. A few places remain. We assess applications in order of receipt.
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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