
New research on mobility by Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren and also by Lawrence Katz makes the case that living in good neighborhoods contributes to upward mobility later in life.
The latest research from Chetty, Hendren, and Katz on improving economic opportunities for low income children was recently profiled in a series of articles appearing in The New York Times on May 4, 2015. Below are links to the latest summary of the current phase of research in the Equality of Opportunity Project as well as to the articles that appeared in the Times.
The Equality of Opportunity Project:
How can we improve economic opportunities for low-income children? The Equality of Opportunity Project uses “big data” to develop new answers to this question. The previous phase of the project presented statistics on how upward mobility varies across areas of the U.S. and over time. In the current phase, we focus on families who moved across areas to study how neighborhoods affect upward mobility. We find that every year of exposure to a better environment improves a child’s chances of success, both in a national quasi-experimental study of five million families and in a re-analysis of the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. We use the new methodology and data to present estimates of the causal effect of each county in America on upward mobility.
-- by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren
Why the New Research on Mobility Matters: An Economist’s View, by Justin Wolfers, The New York Times, May 4, 2015
The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares: Children who grow up in some places go on to earn much more than they would if they grew up elsewhere.
by Gregor Aisch, Eric Buth, Matthew Bloch, Amanda Cox, and Kevin Quealy, The New York Times, May 4, 2015
An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty,
by David Leonhardt, Amanda Cox, and Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, May 4, 2015