Subject Area
Economics
Abstract
Family and cultural values shape the economic decisions of families, households, and communities. The thesis explores several of these themes. First, I study the intergenerational transmission of geography: how do parents' moving decisions affect their children's moving decisions and children's future income? Parents who move more have children who also move more and have larger household incomes, consumption, and education. I model the individual's adult moves as a function of their childhood moves. Next, I compare how family composition affects the ability of a family to smooth out income shocks -- keep a relatively constant level of consumption despite changes in the income level. Finally, I quantify household resilience by modeling and simulating the income shock recovery speed. I model the income dynamics as an auto-regressive process of log income while accounting for measurement error. I simulate income paths for each household, introduce a shock, and calculate the recovery proportions and times after a shock. Measurement error biases the recovery times downward. I find differential recovery times by demographic groups and decompose these demographic differences. This research is policy relevant to provide a method that will help policymakers determine who is at risk for lack of or slow recovery from income shocks.
Degree Date
Spring 5-13-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Economics
Advisor
Daniel Millimet
Second Advisor
Omer Ozak
Third Advisor
Rocio Madera
Fourth Advisor
Cullum Clark
Number of Pages
99
Format
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Bishop, Kristina, "Three Essays in Household Economics" (2023). Economics Theses and Dissertations. 18.
https://scholar.smu.edu/hum_sci_economics_etds/18
Included in
Econometrics Commons, Income Distribution Commons, Labor Economics Commons, Other Economics Commons
