Economic, Workforce, & Regional Development
Spiders engage with many organizations and government offices dedicated to fostering economic growth, enhancing the workforce, and propelling the region forward. If you'd like to engage with one of these organizations, please complete the interest form.
Community Relationships
Boaz & Ruth
Boaz & Ruth is a non-profit that focuses on community revitalization through workforce development and reentry programs, empowering formerly incarcerated individuals to reintegrate successfully into society and the workforce.
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IT4Causes
IT4Causes is a non-profit that provides technology solutions and services to other non-profits, enabling them to operate more efficiently and effectively in serving their respective missions.
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Office of Community Wealth Building
The Office of Community Wealth Building in Richmond focuses on creating pathways to economic self-sufficiency and upward mobility for residents by addressing systemic barriers and providing support for education, employment, housing, and more.
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The Metropolitan Business League
The Metropolitan Business League is an organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the growth of minority-owned businesses in the Richmond area, fostering economic development and entrepreneurship.
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United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg
United Way is a well-known non-profit organization that mobilizes resources and partnerships to address community challenges in areas such as education, financial stability, and health, aiming to improve overall quality of life.
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Locus
Locus, formerly Virginia Community Capital, is a financial institution that provides loans, investments, and technical assistance to support community development projects, affordable housing, and businesses that contribute to economic growth and stability.
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Campus Connections
Entrepreneurship Club
The Entrepreneurship Club hosts a series of events to support two tracks of career interest among students: Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital. The Entrepreneurship Club is open to all students, regardless of major, and encourages and assists students to start their own business, from ideation to business plan development. It also allows students to learn how to evaluate start-up companies and structure deals.
Women in Business
Women in Business focuses on helping young women acclimate into the business world and gain a greater understanding of the overall industry. We want our members to feel comfortable entering into a career in business with adequate resources and a network of connections to lean on for guidance and assistance.
Relevant Courses
ECON 233 Ethics and Economics
Explores ethical considerations that arise in economic analyses. In positive economics, how are choices informed by considerations of duty or virtue (in addition to utility)? In normative economics, how do concepts of welfare and efficiency derive from ethical theories, and how have these changed over time? What competing ethical theories add to our understanding of public policy issues? Preparation for a complex world when economic analysis is viewed as complementary to a critical-thinking process about ethical frameworks. Addresses additional questions such as: What is the moral philosophy behind capitalism? What are the moral limits to markets? Do businesses create and rely upon moral capital?
ECON 300 Industrial Organization and Public Policy
Designed to identify features of industries with various degrees of competition. Issues to be explored include: identifying dominant firm, tight or loose oligopoly, competitive, and monopoly industries; product vs. geographic markets; technological innovations; collusion, product differentiation; mergers; advertising; efficiency; price discrimination; etc. In addition, antitrust policies will be reviewed as they pertain to these issues.
LDST 375 Economic Policy and Leadership
Explores two questions using debates amongst economists as our policy laboratory. First, what is the scope for policy makers to lead the economy through crises and the inevitable ups and downs that accompany economic expansion? How much agency should policy makers assume and when are unusual mechanisms called for? Second, what leadership role do economists legitimately play in the development and implementation of new economic policy? As we read and discuss the policy proposals of the past, we explore the answers to these and other questions in today's economic contexts. Primary focus ethical.