On September 14th, we hosted our first Undergraduate Research Expo. Eleven students from Tufts, MIT and Harvard held short Ted-Talk style on a topic of their choice. Here is the profile of presenter Stephanie Cheng:
Stephanie Cheng is a senior at MIT studying economics. She has conducted research on a variety of topics and chose to present on tracing out demand curves. Stephanie used the randomization of ticket prices to conduct her research.
In her presentation, Stephanie explained that theater groups are often concerned with encouraging large audience numbers while maintaining profits. By the economic law of demand, decreasing price should increase attendance—Stephanie decided to test this hypothesis. Her presentation focused on her randomized experiment of ticket prices for MIT Shakespeare Ensemble’s spring 2014 production of Twelfth Night and if it supported the economic law of demand.
