An Economics Capstone Course from Creation to Presentation

This paper details a methodology used to construct a capstone course for the economics major. The capstone course should require students to utilize key concepts that they have learned. The lack of a meaningful topic, however, detracts from a showcase for student understanding. The author details the use of Michael Porter's (1998) location quotients and competitive cluster theory in a capstone course. Applying these concepts increases student understanding of state industries as well as exposing them to an alternative theory of competition not necessarily included in intermediate microeconomic theory.