Search Results
Journal Article
Neighborhood Types and Intergenerational Mobility
Neighborhoods that differ demographically also exhibit differences in how intergenerational mobility relates to job growth.
Working Paper
The Long-Run Effects of the 1930s HOLC “Redlining” Maps on Place-Based Measures of Economic Opportunity and Socioeconomic Success
We estimate the long-run effects of the 1930s Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) redlining maps on census tract-level measures of socioeconomic status and economic opportunity from the Opportunity Atlas (Chetty et al. 2018). We use two identification strategies to identify the long-run effects of differential access to credit along HOLC boundaries. The first compares cross-boundary differences along actual HOLC boundaries to a comparison group of boundaries that had similar pre-existing differences as the actual boundaries. A second approach uses a statistical model to identify boundaries ...
Working Paper
Industrial Composition and Intergenerational Mobility
For five decades, the share of adults employed in college-degree-intensive industries, such as health care and education, has been rising. Industries that provided employment for workers without degrees, especially manufacturing, have been reducing their payrolls. This economic transition could impact the probability of children obtaining higher levels of education than their parents achieved. In this analysis, measures of the local industrial composition from the Current Population Survey are merged with the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth using the confidential geo-coded records. ...
Working Paper
Earnings Dynamics and Its Intergenerational Transmission: Evidence from Norway
Using administrative data from Norway, we first present stylized facts on labor earnings dynamics between 1993 and 2017 and its heterogeneity across narrow population groups. We then investigate the parents’ role in children’s income dynamics—the intergenerational transmission of income dynamics. We find that children of high-income, high-wealth fathers enjoy steeper income growth over the life cycle and face more volatile but more positively skewed income changes, suggesting that they are more likely to pursue high-return, high-risk careers. Children of poorer fathers also face more ...
Speech
Economic opportunity and income mobility--remarks at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development Annual Community Development Conference, New York City
Remarks at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development Annual Community Development Conference, New York City.
Working Paper
College Access and Attendance Patterns: A Long-Run View
We harmonize the results of 42 different data sets and studies dating back to the early 20th century to construct a time series of college attendance patterns for the United States. We find an important reversal around the time of World War II: before that time, family characteristics such as income were the better predictor of college attendance; afterwards, academic ability was the better predictor. We construct a model of college choice that can explain this reversal. The model's central mechanism is an exogenous rise in the demand for college that leads better colleges to become ...
Working Paper
The Decline in Intergenerational Mobility After 1980
We demonstrate that intergenerational mobility declined sharply for cohorts born between 1957 and 1964 compared to those born between 1942 and 1953. The former entered the labor market largely after the large rise in inequality that occurred around 1980 while the latter entered the labor market before this inflection point. We show that the rank-rank slope rose from 0.27 to 0.4 and the IGE rose from 0.35 to 0.51. The share of children whose income exceeds that of their parents fell by about 3 percentage points. These findings suggest that relative mobility fell by substantially more than ...
Working Paper
Industrial Composition and Intergenerational Mobility
Using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY), this article examines the influence of a region’s industrial composition on the educational attainment of children raised by parents who do not have college degrees. The NLSY’s geo-coded panel allows for precise measurements of the local industries that shaped the parents’ employment opportunities and the labor market that the children directly observed. For cohorts finishing school in the 1990s and early 2000s, concentrations of manufacturing are positively associated with both high school and college attainment. Concentrations ...
Working Paper
On Intergenerational Immobility : Evidence that Adult Credit Health Reflects the Childhood Environment
Using a novel dataset that links socioeconomic background to future credit, postsecondary education, and federal student loan and grant records, we document that, even though it is not and cannot be used by credit agencies in assigning risk, background is a strong predictor of adult credit health. A relationship remains upon inclusion of achievement, attainment, and debt management metrics. These findings reveal a new dimension along which childhood circumstances persist into adulthood and imply that the many important contexts in which credit scores are relied upon to evaluate individuals ...
Speech
The monetary policy outlook and the importance of higher education for economic mobility: remarks at the Council for Economic Education’s 56th Annual Financial Literacy & Economic Education Conference, New York City
Remarks at the Council for Economic Education?s 56th Annual Financial Literacy & Economic Education Conference, New York City.