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Working Paper
Birth cohort and the black-white achievement gap: the role of health soon after birth
A large literature documents the significant gap in average test scores between blacks and whites, while a related literature finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980?s, and a stagnation in convergence during the 1990?s. We use two data sources the Long Term Trends NAEP and AFQT scores for the universe of applicants to the U.S. military between 1976 and 1991 to show that most of the racial convergence in the 1980?s is explained by relative improvements across successive cohorts of blacks born between 1963 and the early 1970?s and not by a secular narrowing in the gap over ...
Newsletter
What similarities between siblings tell us about inequality in the U.S.
The author finds that about half of earnings inequality in the U.S. can be explained by family and community influences during childhood. He also finds that these influences have become more important in recent decades.
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Inequality in Skills and the Great Gatsby Curve
This article presents evidence relating cross-country differences in intergenerational mobility to differences in inequality of skills.
Working Paper
Sibling similarities, differences and economic inequality
I use improved statistical approaches and much larger samples than previous studies to provide more robust estimates of the correlation in economic outcomes among siblings. A key finding is that more than half the variance in log wages among men is due to differences in family and community background. Slightly smaller estimates in the 0.45 to 0.5 range are found for earnings and family income. For women, the sibling correlation in family income is the same as that found for men. I estimate that the sibling correlation in years of schooling and AFQT test scores is higher than 0.6. In ...
Working Paper
The Effects of the 1930s HOLC \"Redlining\" Maps
In the wake of the Great Depression, the Federal government created new institutions such as the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) to stabilize housing markets. As part of that effort, the HOLC created residential security maps for over 200 cities to grade the riskiness of lending to neighborhoods. We trace out the effects of these maps over the course of the 20th and into the early 21st century by linking geocoded HOLC maps to both Census and modern credit bureau data. Our analysis looks at the difference in outcomes between residents living on a lower graded side versus a higher graded ...
Newsletter
Have Borrowers Recovered from Foreclosures during the Great Recession?
This article examines the current financial health of individuals who experienced a home mortgage foreclosure during the Great Recession and assesses the degree to which they have recovered relative to those who lost their homes before the downturn.
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 ...
What Can Geolocation Data Tell Us About Childcare Use and Accessibility?
In the U.S., many parents of young children may not have enough childcare providers near them, which may limit not only their childcare access but also their employment opportunities. In this article, we explore how data on people’s visiting patterns to childcare providers might help inform our understanding of the geographic distances between where families live and where providers operate, as well as how these distances and the capacity of providers can affect childcare access. Our research is part of the Chicago Fed’s Spotlight on Childcare and the Labor Market, a targeted effort to ...
Newsletter
Is there a skills mismatch in the labor market?
This article reviews the concept of skills mismatch in the labor market and examines its role in explaining ongoing low levels of hiring and high levels of unemployment during the current economic recovery.
Newsletter
How Health Insurance Improves Financial Health
Low-income Americans who became eligible to enroll in Medicaid due to the Affordable Care Act saw their medical debt cut in half.