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Working Paper
The Great Migration and Educational Opportunity
This paper studies the impact of the First Great Migration on children. We use the complete count 1940 Census to estimate selection-corrected place effects on education for children of Black migrants. On average, Black children gained 0.8 years of schooling (12 percent) by moving from the South to the North. Many counties that had the strongest positive impacts on children during the 1940s offer relatively poor opportunities for Black youth today. Opportunities for Black children were greater in places with more schooling investment, stronger labor market opportunities for Black adults, more ...
Journal Article
Inequality Research Review Local Labor Markets
Aggregate statistics don’t capture the local conditions that directly affect families and communities.
Working Paper
The Effects of Racial Segregation on Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from Historical Railroad Placement
This paper provides new evidence on the causal impacts of citywide racial segregation on intergenerational mobility. We use an instrumental variable approach that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in segregation due to the arrangement of railroad tracks in the 19th century. Our analysis finds that higher segregation reduces upward mobility for Black children from households across the income distribution and White children from low-income households. Moreover, segregation lowers academic achievement while increasing incarceration and teenage birth rates. An analysis of mechanisms shows ...
Journal Article
Inequality Research Review: Intergenerational Economic Mobility
America is known as the land of opportunity, but our children are not destined to do better than us.
Working Paper
The Evolution of Local Labor Markets After Recessions
This paper studies how U.S. local labor markets respond to employment losses after recessions. Following each recession between 1973 and 2009, we find that areas that lose more jobs during the recession experience persistent relative declines in employment and population. Most importantly and contrary to prior work, these local labor markets also experience persistent decreases in the employment-population ratio and per capita earnings. Our results imply that limited population responses result in longer-lasting consequences for local labor markets than previously thought, and that recessions ...
Working Paper
Racial Inequality in Unemployment Insurance Receipt and Take-Up
This paper studies differences in receipt and take-up of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits among White and Black individuals. We combine state-level UI regulations with data containing detailed information on individuals’ work history and UI receipt. Black individuals who separate from a job are 24% less likely to receive UI than White individuals. The UI receipt gap stems primarily from lower take-up of UI benefits among likely eligible individuals, as opposed to differences in benefit eligibility. Statistical decompositions indicate that about one-half of the take-up gap is explained ...
Working Paper
Place-Based Consequences of Person-Based Transfer: Evidence from Recessions
This paper studies how government transfers respond to changes in local economic activity that emerge during recessions. Local labor markets that experience greater employment losses during recessions face persistent relative decreases in per capita earnings. However, these areas also experience persistent increases in per capita transfers, which offset 16 percent of the earnings loss on average. The increase in transfers is driven by unemployment insurance in the short run, and medical, retirement, and disability transfers in the long run. Our results show that nominally place-neutral ...
Working Paper
Urban Renewal and Inequality: Evidence from Chicago’s Public Housing Demolitions
This paper studies one of the largest spatially targeted redevelopment efforts implemented in the United States: public housing demolitions sponsored by the HOPE VI program. Focusing on Chicago, we study welfare and racial disparities in the impacts of demolitions using a structural model that features a rich set of equilibrium responses. Our results indicate that demolitions had notably heterogeneous effects where welfare decreased for low-income minority households and increased for White households. Counterfactual simulations explore how housing policy mitigates negative effects of ...