Economics Department

Why Study Economics at UNC Asheville?

Our Economics degree program allows you to connect with contemporary issues as you develop your skills in meaningful, impactful research opportunities. Supportive faculty, scholarship opportunities, and student clubs and organizations enrich your educational experience and prepare you to excel in your future endeavors.

Economics Programs
Careers & Outcomes
Economics Internships
Research Projects
Scholarships
Economics Department Faculty

Economics Department Programs

Economics

B.S. Minor Teacher Licensure

In the economics major, we ask big questions to uncover meaningful answers. Guided by economic principles, these answers solve global issues from poverty to the environment.

Finance

Minor

In the finance minor, we study how financial systems operate and how strategic decisions are made. Grounded in economic and quantitative principles, this minor equips students with tools to understand markets, manage risk, and make informed financial choices.

Careers & Outcomes

At UNC Asheville, economics majors gain valuable skills sought by employers in fields like finance, small business, education, nonprofit, and government. Many graduates also leverage their research experience to pursue graduate studies in economics, data analytics, business, or law.

Explore Career Paths in Economics

Outside the Classroom

Economics and Finance Internships

Internships for Economics majors, minors, and Finance minors have been a process of alerting students to opportunities and allowing them to apply independent of the department. In the future, we are hoping to build relationships with companies, organizations, and local government in order to streamline internship pathways for our students.

Internship Opportunities

Outside the Classroom

Lead a Research Project

All economics majors undertake a research project, a résumé-building experience that adds immense value whether students plan on attending graduate school or heading straight into their career. Research opportunities may present themselves through the Undergraduate Research Program or a capstone project in ECON 450, where students will explore a topic and prepare a research proposal. This proposal is implemented in the following semester in ECON 480. Students can pursue their interests in a range of possible topics, from the ROI of a city’s renewable energy project to the cost of locally produced foods to the price of NBA tickets.

Research in Economics

Outside the Classroom

Scholarship Opportunities

The cost of education shouldn’t be a barrier to a student’s future. That’s why UNC Asheville is committed to making education more affordable, enabling scholarships and financial aid access to 70% of students. Those pursuing an economics degree may consider seeking out scholarships offered both through the University as well as those specific to the area of study, many of which are the result of generous gifts from alumni and friends of the Economics Department.

Scholarship Opportunities

Through my research and involvement in the Economics Department, I have become focused and passionate about community outreach in Asheville, and the internships provide a unique opportunity to be involved in outreach within our own communities.

Chelsea Bartlett ‘23

Economics Department Faculty

Small class sizes and our liberal arts focus make the economics major ideal for students seeking a personalized education. Our supportive faculty mentor students through their studies and guide them as they take on research projects, encouraging their curiosity and independence at every step of the way.

Leah Greden Mathews, Ph.D.

Chair and Professor, Department of Economics Chair, Department of Business

Office: 147 Karpen Hall
Phone: 251-6551
Email: lmathews@unca.edu

Luis Espinoza

Lecturer of Economics

Phone:
Email:

Chris Bell, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Economics, Emeritus

Phone:
Email:

Office Hours:

Monday 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Wednesday 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Friday 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Additional office hours also available Monday – Friday by prior appointment.

Kathleen Lawlor, Ph.D.

Director of MS in Environmental Resilience, Associate Professor of Economics

Office: 152 Karpen Hall
Phone: (828) 250-3983
Email: klawlor@unca.edu

Dr. Kathleen Lawlor is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the MS in Environmental Resilience. An applied microeconomist, her research investigates the impacts of public policies on a range of environment and development outcomes, with a focus on how climate and development policies affect local communities, forests, and ecosystem services. She has examined the impacts of tropical forest carbon projects on local communities’ land rights and income, how cash transfers contribute to rural farming households’ climate resilience, and, most recently, the impacts of Asheville’s urban renewal projects on displacement and household wealth.

Prior to academia, Dr. Lawlor worked on international environment and development policy with numerous organizations. She has worked for an independent accountability mechanism of the World Bank Group, investigating project-affected communities’ claims of human rights violations and social and environmental harms, for a think tank at Duke University on international climate and forest policy, and with farmers in Cameroon on agroforestry and HIV/AIDS education as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She remains engaged in applied policy work, advising both local and global organizations on how to evaluate and improve their social impacts.

Dr. Lawlor’s courses emphasize the power of the economic approach to causal inference and how economic theory and evidence can be harnessed to fight poverty and environmental degradation through public policy.

Education

Ph.D., Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.E.M., Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University
B.A., The College of William & Mary

Teaching

Econ 103 Introductory Economic Analysis
ECON 274 Race and Economic Opportunity
Econ 317 Poverty and Human Capital
Econ 339 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Policy
Econ 365 Econometrics
Econ 372 Monitoring and Evaluation for Social Impact
Econ 450 Environment and Development Economics
Econ 480 Senior Research in Economics
MSER 502 Climate Resilience Foundations: Theory and Practice
MSER 511: Practicum I: Internship and Research Proposal
MSER 599: Practicum II: Applied Research Project

Publications

Visit my Google Scholar page for more information.

Fraser, J. and K. Lawlor. 2026. The Significance of 20^th-Century Urban Renewal Policies for Racially Reparative Planning. Chp. 6 in The Performative City: An Approach to the Study of Urban Policy, D. Oakley and J.C. Fraser (Eds.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, p.79-96.

Pfau, A., K. Lawlor, D. Hochfelder, and S. Kinlock Sewell. 2024. Using Urban Renewal Records to Advance Reparative Justice. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Special Issue on Black Reparations: Insights from the Social Sciences (Eds., William Darity Jr., Thomas Craemer, Daina Ramey Berry, and Dania V. Francis), 10(2): 113-131.

Lawlor, K. 2022. Incentives, Institutions, and Inequality: A Pluralist Approach to Teaching Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Chp. 5 in Teaching Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: Paradigms and Pedagogy, Bergstrom, J.C. and Whitehead, J.C. (Eds.). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. p.102-129.

Lawlor, K., S. Handa, B. Davis, and D. Seidenfeld. 2020. Poverty-environment relationships under market heterogeneity: Cash transfers and rural livelihoods in Zambia. Environment and Development Economics, 25(3): 291-314.

Lawlor, K., Sills, E.O., S. Atmadja, L. Lin, and K. Songwathana. 2019. SDG #1: No Poverty – Impacts of Social Protection, Tenure Security, and Building Resilience on Forests. Chp. 1 in Sustainable Development Goals: Their Impacts on Forests and People, Katila, P., C.J.P. Colfer, W. de Jong, G. Galloway, P. Pacheco, and G. Winkel (Eds.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lawlor, K., S. Handa, and D. Seidenfeld. 2019. Cash transfers enable households to cope with agricultural production and price shocks: Evidence from Zambia. Journal of Development Studies, 55:2, 209-226.

Sills, E.O., C. de Sassi, P. Jagger, K. Lawlor, D.A. Miteva, S.K. Pattanayak, W.D. Sunderlin. 2017. Building the evidence base for REDD+: Study design and methods for evaluating the impacts of conservation interventions on local well-being. Global Environmental Change 43: 148-160.

Jagger, P., M. Brockhaus, A.E. Duchelle, M.F. Gebara, K. Lawlor, I.A.P. Resosudarmo, W.D. Sunderlin. 2014. Multi-level Policy Dialogues and Actions: Challenges and Opportunities for National REDD+ Safeguards Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV). Forests 5(9): 2136-2162.

Lawlor, K. and S. Swan. 2014. Mainstreaming multiple benefits in subnational land-use planning: Sourcebook for REDD+ and sustainable landscapes. SNV – The Netherlands Development Organization. Ho Chi Minh City.

Lawlor, K. 2013. Methods for assessing and evaluating social impacts of program-level REDD+. Report for USAID’s Forest Carbon, Markets, and Communities Program. TetraTech: Arlington, VA.

Lawlor, K., E. Myers-Madeira, J. Blockhus, D. Ganz. 2013. Community participation and benefits in REDD+: A review of initial outcomes and lessons. Forests 4: 296-318.

Jagger, P., K. Lawlor, M. Brockhaus, M.F. Gebara, D.J. Sonwa, I.A.P. Resosudarmo. 2012. REDD+ safeguards in national policy discourse and pilot projects. Chapter in Analysing REDD+: Challenges and choices. Edited by Angelsen, A. CIFOR: Bogor, Indonesia.

Ferraro, P., K. Lawlor, K. Mullan, and S.K. Pattanayak. 2011. Forest figures: A review of ecosystem services valuation and policy evaluation in developing countries. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 6(1): 20-44.

Caplow, S., P. Jagger, K. Lawlor, and E.O. Sills. 2011. Evaluating land use and livelihood impacts of early forest carbon projects: Lessons for learning about REDD+. Environmental Science and Policy 14: 152-167.

Lawlor, K., E. Weinthal, and L.P. Olander. 2010. Institutions and policies to protect rural livelihoods in REDD+ regimes. Global Environmental Politics 10(4): 1-11.

Jagger, P., E. Sills, K. Lawlor, and W. Sunderlin. 2010. Guide to learning about livelihood impacts of REDD+ projects. CIFOR: Bogor, Indonesia.

Jie Ma, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Economics

Office: 155 Karpen Hall
Phone: 251-6568
Email: jma1@unca.edu

Office Hours:

Tuesday 8:30 am – 10:30 am

Wednesday 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Office hours also available by appointment.

Melissa Mahoney, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Economics

Office: 157 Karpen Hall
Phone: 251-6672
Email: mmahoney@unca.edu

Muhammad Nawaz, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Economics

Office: 153 Karpen Hall
Phone: (828) 251-6834
Email: mnawaz@unca.edu

Education

Ph.D. Economics, Texas Tech University

MPhil Economics, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Pakistan

M.Sc. Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan

B.A. Economics, University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Dr. Nawaz is an applied economist focusing on macro finance and household finance. His work concentrates on the impact of credit market imperfections and the application of finance on various macroeconomic components, including business and corporate finance, climate finance, business cycle fluctuations, labor finance, and retirement finance. His work explicitly analyzes the asymmetric information in finance, i.e., adverse selection and moral hazard, as well as banks’ monitoring cost in the credit market and lender behavior when scrutinizing borrowers. He is also interested in the reasons for credit restrictions among unbanked individuals, such as requirements for physical collateral, the credit history and previous bankruptcy of borrowers, and strict lending policies by donor agencies in financing businesses and countries. He prefers to address macro and household finance-related research questions by developing a theoretical background and employing historical data to examine the research questions empirically and using various programming languages. He believes in financial inclusion as a solution to macroeconomic and development issues, environmental problems, and household monetary needs. He cares about macro developments, financial stabilization for transitional economies, and small business creation with the provision of small-scale loan and low-interest rate. He promotes the consideration of social collateral rather than physical collateral, which may improve access to credit for individuals, businesses, and economies.

Before starting in academia, he worked for over two years on a funded project through the International Development Research Center (IDRC) at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Pakistan. In addition, he has experience in working on wide-ranging projects financed by various donor agencies, including the South Asian Network of Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, and Higher Education Commission (HEC) Thematic Research Grant, Pakistan. His work on inclusive growth at HEC funded project suggests institutions to initiate financial inclusion-based policies for economic prosperity. He was one of the six selected research track applicants after competing internationally with 54 research economists and won the “Fellowship” on Adaptation Finance, funded by the IDRC, which was managed/organized by the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).

He has taught multiple courses at Texas Tech University at the introductory and the intermediate levels, and he has diverse teaching interests, including the finance, macroeconomics, and microeconomics. He served as a full-time lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Sargodha, Pakistan, with a teaching focus on macroeconomics analysis, finance, applied economics, and climate change. His rich teaching experience at the international level helps him to mentor students coming from diverse backgrounds and encourage them to self-learn, improve their skills, and enhance their knowledge using the lens of economics and finance. During lectures, he develops interaction with students by using classroom technology to not only help the students learn economics but also improve their ability to apply economic principles to different practical, monetary, and financial problems. In his classroom, he always likes to keep students engaged by using relevant real-world information, case studies, and economic news, relating these examples to the instructional materials. As an instructor, he believes in empowering students professionally and financially by encouraging them to participate in research seminars, paid internships, career development, and networking, particularly guiding them to participate in funded research opportunities.