Ted Hickey ’08 — Sammamish, Wash.

When Ted Hickey applied for a summer research position within the economics department, he thought he might end up doing glorified data entry. Amyaz Moledina, an assistant professor of economics, had recently gained access to previously classified British government documents concerning the devaluation of the pound in 1967. Hickey figured he would spend his summer keying numbers from the declassified documents for Moldina to crunch.

“But I’m doing a lot more than that,” he said. “Professor Moledina has asked me to summarize articles and develop a timeline about how the series of crises that ultimately led to devaluation unfolded. He’s given me a lot of freedom to create my own hypotheses” about the politics and policy decisions behind the economic developments.

Together, professor and student have developed a theoretical model that looks at the interplay of interest rates, exchange rates, the money supply, and a number of other variables.

“We’re trying to immerse ourselves in the thought processes of the people at that time — bankers, politicians and others,” Hickey said. “Basically, we’re trying to determine why and when the markets lost confidence in the fixed exchange rate.”

Moledina and Hickey have made a good team. “I wanted someone curious enough to lead themselves,” Moledina said. “I didn’t want to have to micromanage the project. I try to do that with all my students, because the real world is much more nebulous than a typical academic assignment. Your boss may call you in and say, ‘We’re thinking about expanding into China. Look into that.’ And so you have to sit down and figure it out.”

For Hickey, an international relations major and Spanish minor who’s thinking about a career in developmental economics or journalism after graduation, the nine-week project has proved a perfect match for his interests.

“I would have done this just for room and board,” he said. “Getting a stipend on top of that was just a bonus.”