Cohort Programs

(ECON 530)
Personal Webpage
claudia.strow@wku.edu

I am an associate professor in the Economics Department. After completing my doctoral courses at Vanderbilt University, I joined the faculty at WKU in the fall of 2000. At WKU, I teach principles of macro and micro-economics, as well as introduction to economics for non-business majors. I also teach courses in the economics of poverty and discrimination, labor economics, and graduate labor economics along with economic policy for the masters program in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Communities.

My areas of expertise include labor economics, industrial organization, and economics of the family. My research interests have included the examination of how family structures influence investments in children, the relation between maternal and child asthma incidence and labor force attachment among women, the relation between offspring, gender and divorce probability, the relation between tithing and the definition of income, the role of societal definition of a neighborhood and policy implications, and the use of active learning exercises in the classroom. I have published articles in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Humanomics: An International Journal of Systems and Ethics, Journal of Markets and Morality, Journal of Applied Economics and Policy, Journal of Economics and Finance Education, and the Pennsylvania Economic Review.

I serve as the co-advisor of the WKU Economics Club and have chaperoned the club on recent trips to Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, D.C., and Atlanta. I also serve on the Women’s Studies Steering Committee and the Social Responsibility and Sustainable Communities Masters committee. In addition, I advise a number of the Masters in Economics students on their graduate theses.

I am especially excited to have the chance to teach Economic Policy in the new SRSC Masters program. I believe that too many policy decisions are made without analyzing both the benefits and the costs of a decision. I look forward to the opportunity to work with individuals who may not have had much prior economics exposure and introduce them to the economic analysis of policies.

When I am not busy teaching or researching, I enjoy spending time with family and friends. I am married to a fellow economist (whom I met in graduate school) and we have four children: Tucker (age 8), Colette (age 6), Oliver (age 4), and Thatcher (almost 2). Together we love to travel, swim, hike, and eat out. And, when I have a rare moment alone, I love to play tennis and read.