Andrea Mata
McNair Scholar 2022
Andrea Mata is an economics and mathematics major in the College of Business at West Texas A&M University. She is a senior anticipating graduation in Spring 2023. After attaining a bachelor’s degree, Andrea intends to attain a Ph.D. in Economics with a specialization in Economic Development. This aligns with her goals to research developing economies and find ways to induce economic growth and prosperity.
“I really enjoyed the trip to Texas Tech. I got the chance to make connections with academics in the field I am interested in and learn about the Economics department’s expectations and goals. I was encouraged to keep up with my research, believe in my abilities, and continue pursuing a Ph.D. in economics" - Andrea Mata
"Educational Inequities in Developing Economies"
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ryan Mattson
Macroeconomic growth theory suggests that developing human capital, either male or female, through quality education, health care, training, etc. counteracts poverty and stimulates economic growth and development. But these effects can be unevenly distributed, leading to gaps between different groups and demographics. We focus on the gaps in secondary education enrollment of boys and girls over time and in various emerging economies. Investing in female education should decrease the gap in enrollment between boys and girls and lead to better productivity outcomes. We hypothesize that government expenditures on education and health have the most significant effects to increase female enrollment in secondary education, thus being the more efficient variables to close the gap between males and females enrolled in secondary education. After running a two-way fixed effect panel linear model, we found that expenditure on education and health does have a significant effect on increasing female enrollment in secondary education, however, there is not sufficient evidence to say that either efficiently closes this gap. Further work is needed to determine and account for the endogeneity of the independent variables and account for previous years' effects on current levels.