Technologies Used: ArcGIS; Stata (Statistical Analysis Software)
Course: Economics 1008 Deconstructing Discrimination (Winter Term 2009)
Number of Students: 20
Assistance: Jack Cuneo, a tutor in the media lab (ArcGIS help)
Anticipated Learning Outcomes: Experience with  collecting data and performing empirical analysis, familiarity with the  capabilities of ArcGIS software, ability to use  Stata software.

Summary: “My winter term class “Deconstructing Discrimination” carried out an empirical research project to examine whether retail gasoline prices are correlated with the racial and income characteristics of neighborhoods.  The project required obtaining, manipulating, and combining data from a variety of sources.  We purchased gasoline price data from Oil Price International (OPIS), used ArcGIS to identify the census tract for each station, and then obtained neighborhood characteristics from the 2000 Decennial Census using Geolytics software.  Continue reading →