The College of Business is pleased to welcome M. Steven Holloway, a new assistant teaching professor of economics.
When he started his PhD, Holloway already knew that he wanted to work for a mid-size state university, preferably in a community with robust outdoor recreational activities.
“Michigan Tech checked both those boxes and brought me closer to my original home of Iowa. When the opportunity arose to work here, it was an easy decision to make,” Holloway says.
Holloway’s primary research investigates intertemporal choice through a behavioral economics lens. He says his interest in the topic stems from his fascination with the human mind.
“I love developing models that attempt to approximate the complex processes our brains use to make decisions,” Holloway explains. “Intertemporal choice is a topic of interest in not only economics, but in psychology, sociology, ecology, and finance, among others, giving me opportunities to collaborate and learn from other disciplines,”
Holloway is also interested in questions related to inequality and the environment.
Holloway’s teaching philosophy is based in his desire for inclusion and equity in his field. He says that helping students find their passion is one of teaching’s biggest rewards.
“I feel very privileged to be able to impart knowledge to students, knowing that some lesson of mine may be the spark that shapes the path of someone’s academic and professional career,” Holloway says. “It’s an added bonus when I get to see that passion firsthand.”
“If students see their experiences reflected in the course and are challenged to think deeply about them, sustained engagement with the material comes naturally,” he says, adding that he engages and motivates his students with relevant and challenging learning materials.
Holloway aims to create economics lessons that are intellectually challenging while engaging a larger, more diverse set of students by relating content to lived experiences and societal issues.
“By doing so, I can share the insights of economic reasoning and research while also gaining insight into perspectives other than my own,” he says. “The knowledge flow from teacher to student, and vice versa, benefits both the science and pedagogy of economics.”
In a favorite research project, which led to the first two chapters of his PhD dissertation, Holloway and his co-authors designed an experiment to test whether their research subjects essentially followed “the rules” of current discounting models, or if a more general model that the researchers had developed matched their behavior better.
“It was an interesting and satisfying process to develop the experiment, which had no direct analogs in the literature, and to find results that suggest that some widely assumed features of human behavior may not always hold after all,” he says.
This year Holloway will teach Principles of Economics (EC 2001), Economic Decision Analysis (EC 3400), Mathematical Economics (EC 4100), and Market Failure and the Environment (EC 5650/4650).
Holloway earned a PhD and MS in Economics at the University of Oregon, and a BS in both Business Economics and Finance from Iowa State University.
“My favorite part of the area so far has to be the proximity to Lake Superior,” Holloway says. “Being able to walk along the Portage Canal every morning and visit the Lake Superior lakeshore any time I want to have been wonderful.”
Read more about Steven Holloway in his faculty profile.
The Michigan Tech College of Business prepares tomorrow’s business professionals through STEM-infused, AACSB-accredited degree programs and minors. The college’s bachelor of science programs are in accounting, business analytics, construction management, economics, engineering management, finance, management, management information systems, and marketing; master of science programs are in accounting and analytics, applied natural resource economics, engineering management, and the TechMBA®.
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