Our Economics Honors Theses

This past semester we had 3 students taking Econometrics who took their first major step toward a great honors thesis. I'm excited to see what these young ladies conclude. Below are their abstracts. If you encounter these young scholars out in the wild, then be sure to ask them about their research!

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Mary-Kathleen Dowling-Parra
Micro and Small Enterprise Financing in Peru

Microfinancing is often seen as the answer to providing financial security and empowerment to small business owners who often would not have access or be unable to obtain loans or credit otherwise. In this study, I test the impact of financing on micro and small businesses in Peru to evaluate whether it truly helps marginalized business owners and increases their business profits. Using Micro and Small Business Surveys from Peru's National Institute of Statistics and Information, I examine which demographics are most likely to receive financing as well as what type of financing increases a business’s profits the most. I consider the owner’s gender, age, and education as well as the age of the business, its technology, number of employees, and their training. I find that male owners were more likely to receive financing than women - though there is no evidence that this is due to discrimination or different barriers to access. The characteristic that most increases the likelihood of an owner receiving financing is when an owner has received business training. As I further my study, I will explore where there is a gender difference in the type of financing that an owner receives how it affects micro and small businesses. 

Brianna Hougham
The Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act and Children’s School Outcomes in India

Studies have shown the challenges children face after witnessing or falling victim to domestic abuse. There is high incidence of violence at home in India, with fifty-two percent of women believing it is okay for a man to beat his wife. This violent home environment can have detrimental effects on children and their school outcomes. I examine whether the implementation of the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act (2005) had a positive impact on children’s school outcomes. My study uses panel data of school age children from the 2006 and 2012 Indian Human Development Survey. Additionally, I use data from the Fourth Monitoring and Evaluation Report 2010 on the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005, which reports data on the number of protection officers and the state-level estimated budget set aside towards implementation of the act. I study whether increased budgets and a greater numbers of protection officers help in improving school outcomes for children. My preliminary findings show that states with enforcement of Protection Officers increased children’s attendance in school. An increase in the budget, however, led to a decrease in children’s school attendance, suggesting that budgets for education were decreased in order to fund the act. 

Julia Wool

The Effect of Government and Industry Funding on the Antibiotic Discovery Void

Does increased government health funding impact the discovery of new antibiotics? Previous studies state the importance of antibiotic research given the growing concern of antibiotic-resistant infections.  Researchers point to a void in the discovery of new antibiotics that began in 1987 and has continued to the present.  The consensus in the literature is that the lack of government and private funding has been a significant contributor to this void.  To examine this I use health data from the National Science Foundation on research and development expenditures broken down by type of research: basic, applied, and development.  My preliminary descriptive statistics show that since 1953 all three types of funding by the federal government have increased.  For the private industry my findings show that both applied and development research and development have increased while basic research and development has stagnated. The preliminary findings from my Probit model show a negative and statistically significant relationship between government funding and the discovery of new antibiotics.  However, this result is not consistent with the theory. Therefore, in a future extension, I plan to extend my model to control for regulations that could have disincentivize the discovery of new antibiotics by the private sector.