2019-2020 Senior Honors Theses
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This collection contains theses produced by Class of 2020 Honors students
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Browsing 2019-2020 Senior Honors Theses by Department "Economics, Department of"
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Item The Impact of Family Structure in Determining Individual Risk Attitudes among African American Girls(2020-05) Obi, TraceyMost papers find that women are more risk averse than men; the one consistent factor across research is that environment shapes a person’s risk preferences. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamic (PSID) and a field experiment, we are able to examine the factors that influence individuals risk attitudes. My thesis will look at two distinct family environments, a nuclear family versus a single mother household, with emphasis on the African American community. In a nuclear family, usually, the man is the breadwinner and decision maker, a child has the influence of both a father and a mother. A father’s influence has been linked to have an impact on a child’s emotional development and their attitude towards others. In a single-mother household, the woman is the breadwinner and the decision-maker, she has to work as well as take care of the child. If that child has no male influence, she might grow up being encouraged to take more risks. Therefore, my hypothesis is, girls who grow up in single-mother households might be more risk loving than girls who grow up in a nuclear household. We find that African American girls who grow up in a single mother household are less risk averse compared to girls who grow up in a nuclear household. However, boys who grow up in a single mother household are more risk averse than boys who grow up in a nuclear family. These results show that there is a male-female gender gap in risk attitudes among those who grow up in nuclear family households.Item Transit Deserts: An Analysis of Their Impact On Health and Access to Health Care(2020-05) Cervantes, AngieA transit desert is defined as an area with limited transportation supply and or infrastructure, which may limit people’s ability to procure jobs, access health care, and obstructs economic mobility (Junfeng & Dillivan, 2013). The University of Texas Professor Junfeng Jiao first coined the term transit desert in 2012. Transit-dependent communities are immobile, unable to afford private transportation costs such as insurance or gas, and poverty-stricken. Using panel data of 3,974 block groups from 2013 to 2019, we investigate whether there is a relationship between vehicle availability and access to health care. We estimate the relationship between vehicle availability and various health outcome measurements, such as self-reported Unmet Medical Need, Emergency Room Visits by Children in the last 12 Months, and Last Reported Health Care Visit. We found that there is a relationship between vehicle availability and access to health; however, there are other vital factors such as not having insurance or having income below the poverty line, that transcend the effects of vehicle availability.