Digital Commons Network^™

Geographic Banking Discrimination In The United States, Simon Ross Gilbert

CMC Senior Theses

Financial institutions in the United States have historically discriminated against Black Americans in a multitude of ways. One potential dynamic of unequal access that remains understudied is geographic in nature. That is, are commercial banks less likely to locate in neighborhoods with more Black people? Using a fixed effects and selection on observables model, I find that a 1 percentage point increase in an area’s Black population is related to a 0.11 decrease in the number of commercial banks in that area. This effect is localized primarily in urban areas, particularly in cities in the Mid-Atlantic, Upper Midwest, and Pacific …

Analyzing Marriage Statistics As Recorded In The Journal Of The American Statistical Association From 1889 To 2012, Annalee Soohoo

CMC Senior Theses

The United States has been tracking American marriage statistics since its founding. According to the United States Census Bureau, “marital status and marital history data help federal agencies understand marriage trends, forecast future needs of programs that have spousal benefits, and measure the effects of policies and programs that focus on the well-being of families, including tax policies and financial assistance programs.”[1] With such a wide scope of applications, it is understandable why marriage statistics are so highly studied and well-documented.

This thesis will analyze American marriage patterns over the past 100 years as documented in the Journal of …

Exploring The Generational Evolution Of Black-White Wage Inequality Across Geographic Regions Of The United States, Rachel Scharff-Hansen

CMC Senior Theses

Wages of black men trail those of their white counterparts despite decades of generational socio-political change. This paper examines the extent to which the black-white wage gap has evolved from individuals born in the Baby Boomer (births between 1956 and 1964) to the Millennial (births between 1977 and 1995) generation, an era assumed to reflect great shifts in anti-racist sentiments and opportunities in the late 20^th century. Despite presumed progressive attitudes developed in this time period, I find that the black-white wage differential of the labor market in its whole has worsened from black earnings lagging 28.1% behind white …