Index of studies
This index lists the studies that the chapters cite in their evidence boxes. A listing does not rank a study’s strength, and each result applies to the population and period named in its entry.
Volume 1. Cradle and climb
Causal evidence
Income support and birth outcomes
- Design
- Difference-in-differences
- Population
- Births to mothers who received larger credits from federal expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and births to mothers who received smaller credits, before and after each reform
- Outcome
- Low birthweight and mean birthweight
- References
- Hoynes, Hilary; Miller, Doug; Simon, David (2015). Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7(1): 172-211. doi:10.1257/pol.20120179
Causal evidence
Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women
- Design
- State and year fixed effects on simulated eligibility
- Population
- States as they widened Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women at different times during the 1980s, observed by state and year
- Outcome
- Infant mortality and low birthweight, by state and year
- References
- Currie, Janet; Gruber, Jonathan (1996). Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women. Journal of Political Economy 104(6): 1263-1296. doi:10.1086/262059
Causal evidence
Cigarette taxes and smoking in pregnancy
- Design
- Matched comparison states around large tax increases, with an instrumental variable for birth weight
- Population
- Pregnant women in states that adopted large cigarette tax increases and in control states chosen by statistical matching
- Outcome
- Smoking participation of pregnant women, and low birth weight
- References
- Lien, Diana S.; Evans, William N. (2005). Estimating the Impact of Large Cigarette Tax Hikes: The Case of Maternal Smoking and Infant Birth Weight. Journal of Human Resources 40(2): 373-392. doi:10.3368/jhr.xl.2.373
Causal evidence
State income support and maternal smoking
- Design
- Difference-in-differences
- Population
- Singleton births from 1995 to 2013 to adult mothers with a high-school education or less, in states with and without state Earned Income Tax Credit laws, from birth certificates
- Outcome
- Tobacco use during pregnancy, other maternal health behaviors, birth weight and weeks of gestation
- References
- Markowitz, Sara; Komro, Kelli A.; Livingston, Melvin D.; Lenhart, Otto; Wagenaar, Alexander C. (2017). Effects of state-level Earned Income Tax Credit laws in the U.S. on maternal health behaviors and infant health outcomes. Social Science & Medicine 194: 67-75. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.016
Causal evidence
Head Start funding and children's later outcomes
- Design
- Regression discontinuity
- Population
- Counties above and below the 1960 county poverty-rate cutoff that decided which received help writing Head Start proposals in 1965, with young school-age children and cohorts old enough to have been exposed
- Outcome
- Mortality from causes that Head Start could affect, and educational attainment
- References
- Ludwig, Jens; Miller, Douglas L. (2007). Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(1): 159-208. doi:10.1162/qjec.122.1.159
Causal evidence
School finance reforms and adult outcomes
- Design
- Event study with instrumental variables
- Population
- Children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011, compared by how many of their school years were exposed to a court-ordered school finance reform
- Outcome
- Educational attainment, adult wages and adult poverty
- References
- Jackson, C. Kirabo; Johnson, Rucker C.; Persico, Claudia (2016). The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(1): 157-218. doi:10.1093/qje/qjv036
Causal evidence
School suspension and adult crime
- Design
- School attendance boundary change (quasi-experiment) and principal turnover
- Population
- Students in one school district whose attendance boundaries were redrawn in a single year, sent to schools with higher or lower suspension rates, and students whose schools changed principal
- Outcome
- Arrest and incarceration as adults, and educational attainment
- References
- Bacher-Hicks, Andrew; Billings, Stephen B.; Deming, David J. (2024). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 16(4): 165-193. doi:10.1257/pol.20230052
Causal evidence
Juvenile incarceration and later outcomes
- Design
- Instrumental variables from the random assignment of cases to judges
- Population
- Juvenile offenders in a large urban county, whose cases were assigned to judges at random
- Outcome
- High school completion and incarceration as adults
- References
- Aizer, Anna; Doyle, Joseph J., Jr. (2015). Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(2): 759-803. doi:10.1093/qje/qjv003
Causal evidence
What designs that can speak to cause find about admission, aid, funding and credentials
- Design
- Regression discontinuity; instrumental variables; randomized resume experiment
- Population
- Students just above and just below a grade-point threshold for admission to a large public university in Florida (Zimmerman); students around the grade-point and family-income cutoffs for California's Cal Grant (Bettinger and coauthors); students at public four-year and two-year colleges, by each institution's baseline reliance on state appropriations (Chakrabarti, Gorton and Lovenheim); employers receiving fictitious resumes that differed in the sector and selectivity of the college, sent in response to real job postings (Deming and coauthors)
- Outcome
- University attendance and earnings in the following years (Zimmerman); degree completion, later earnings and enrollment (Bettinger and coauthors); debt originations, adverse debt events, time to degree, tuition, institutional spending, educational attainment, credit scores, home ownership and delinquency (Chakrabarti, Gorton and Lovenheim); employer callbacks (Deming and coauthors)
- References
- Zimmerman, Seth D. (2014). The Returns to College Admission for Academically Marginal Students. Journal of Labor Economics 32(4): 711-754. doi:10.1086/676661
- Bettinger, Eric; Gurantz, Oded; Kawano, Laura; Sacerdote, Bruce; Stevens, Michael (2019). The Long-Run Impacts of Financial Aid: Evidence from California's Cal Grant. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 11(1): 64-94. doi:10.1257/pol.20170466
- Chakrabarti, Rajashri; Gorton, Nicole; Lovenheim, Michael F. (2020). State Investment in Higher Education: Effects on Human Capital Formation, Student Debt, and Long-term Financial Outcomes of Students. NBER Working Paper 27885. doi:10.3386/w27885
- Deming, David J.; Yuchtman, Noam; Abulafi, Amira; Goldin, Claudia; Katz, Lawrence F. (2016). The Value of Postsecondary Credentials in the Labor Market: An Experimental Study. American Economic Review 106(3): 778-806. doi:10.1257/aer.20141757
Causal evidence
Whether place changes a child's adult outcomes
- Design
- Randomized housing-voucher experiment; movers design
- Population
- Children in families in high-poverty public housing who were randomly assigned an offer of a voucher usable only in a low-poverty neighborhood, an offer of an unrestricted voucher or no offer, followed into adulthood (Chetty, Hendren and Katz); children whose families moved between counties and commuting zones when the children were at different ages, including siblings in the same family (Chetty and Hendren); neighborhoods in the Opportunity Atlas, combining the experimental and movers estimates (Chetty and coauthors)
- Outcome
- Adult earnings and college attendance (Chetty, Hendren and Katz); children's adult outcomes, compared with those of children raised in the destination (Chetty and Hendren); variation in outcomes across neighborhoods (Chetty and coauthors)
- References
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel; Katz, Lawrence F. (2016). The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. American Economic Review 106(4): 855-902. doi:10.1257/aer.20150572
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel (2018). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(3): 1107-1162. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy007
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel (2018). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(3): 1163-1228. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy006
- Chetty, Raj; Friedman, John N.; Hendren, Nathaniel; Jones, Maggie R.; Porter, Sonya R. (2018). The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility. NBER Working Paper 25147. doi:10.3386/w25147
Causal evidence
Whether expanding access to long-acting contraception changes teen birth rates
- Design
- Difference-in-differences
- Population
- Teenagers living in counties with a Title X family-planning clinic, in Colorado and in other states, in the years around the program's start in 2009
- Outcome
- County teen birth rate, births to teenagers per teenage female resident
- Chapter
- Chapter 3.4, Teen births
- References
- Lindo, Jason M.; Packham, Analisa (2017). How Much Can Expanding Access to Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives Reduce Teen Birth Rates?. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 9(3): 348-376. doi:10.1257/pol.20160039
Volume 2. The grind
Causal evidence
Whether the HOLC maps changed the neighborhoods they graded
- Design
- Boundary design with propensity-score weighting; comparison of cities around a population cutoff
- Population
- Neighborhoods on either side of 1930s Home Owners' Loan Corporation grade borders within cities, observed in decennial census data from before and after the maps, and cities just below and just above the population cutoff that decided whether a city was mapped
- Outcome
- Homeownership rates, house values, rents and racial segregation in later decades
- References
- Aaronson, Daniel; Hartley, Daniel; Mazumder, Bhashkar (2021). The Effects of the 1930s HOLC "Redlining" Maps. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 13(4): 355-392. doi:10.1257/pol.20190414
Causal evidence
Whether loan officers respond differently to names that signal race
- Design
- Matched-pair email correspondence experiment
- Population
- Licensed mortgage loan originators who received email inquiries about a loan from prospective borrowers with names that signal a Black or a white sender and with differing reported credit scores
- Outcome
- Whether the originator replied, whether the originator followed up, and how much loan information the reply gave
- References
- Hanson, Andrew; Hawley, Zackary; Martin, Hal; Liu, Bo (2016). Discrimination in Mortgage Lending: Evidence from a Correspondence Experiment. Journal of Urban Economics 92: 48-65. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2015.12.004
Causal evidence
Whether an eviction order changes a tenant's later outcomes
- Design
- Instrumental variables with random assignment of cases to judges
- Population
- Tenants in eviction cases in Cook County, Illinois, and New York City, where cases are assigned to judges at random, in linked court and administrative records
- Outcome
- Homelessness, hospital visits, earnings, durable goods consumption and access to credit in the years after an eviction order
- References
- Collinson, Robert; Humphries, John Eric; Mader, Nicholas; Reed, Davin; Tannenbaum, Daniel; van Dijk, Winnie (2024). Eviction and Poverty in American Cities. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 139(1): 57-120. doi:10.1093/qje/qjad042
Causal evidence
Coverage expansions and community health centers
- Design
- Randomized lottery; difference-in-differences
- Population
- People whose names were drawn, or not drawn, in Oregon's 2008 lottery for the chance to apply for Medicaid (Finkelstein and coauthors, Baicker and coauthors); near-elderly adults in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and in states that did not, before and after the expansions (Miller, Johnson and Wherry); counties that opened a community health center earlier and counties that opened one later during the 1965 to 1974 rollout (Bailey and Goodman-Bacon)
- Outcome
- Use of health care, out-of-pocket medical spending, medical debt and self-reported health in the first year, then preventive services, diabetes detection and management, positive depression screens and measured blood pressure, cholesterol and glycated hemoglobin at the later follow-up (Finkelstein and coauthors, Baicker and coauthors); annual mortality (Miller, Johnson and Wherry); mortality among older adults (Bailey and Goodman-Bacon)
- References
- Finkelstein, Amy; Taubman, Sarah; Wright, Bill; Bernstein, Mira; Gruber, Jonathan; Newhouse, Joseph P.; Allen, Heidi; Baicker, Katherine; Oregon Health Study Group (2012). The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 127(3): 1057-1106. doi:10.1093/qje/qjs020
- Baicker, Katherine; Taubman, Sarah L.; Allen, Heidi L.; Bernstein, Mira; Gruber, Jonathan H.; Newhouse, Joseph P.; Schneider, Eric C.; Wright, Bill J.; Zaslavsky, Alan M.; Finkelstein, Amy N. (2013). The Oregon Experiment: Effects of Medicaid on Clinical Outcomes. New England Journal of Medicine 368(18): 1713-1722. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1212321
- Miller, Sarah; Johnson, Norman; Wherry, Laura R. (2021). Medicaid and Mortality: New Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 136(3): 1783-1829. doi:10.1093/qje/qjab004
- Bailey, Martha J.; Goodman-Bacon, Andrew (2015). The War on Poverty's Experiment in Public Medicine: Community Health Centers and the Mortality of Older Americans. American Economic Review 105(3): 1067-1104. doi:10.1257/aer.20120070
Causal evidence
Lottery winnings, smoking and drinking
- Design
- Natural experiment: size of lottery winnings among winners
- Population
- British adults in a household panel who reported winnings from the national lottery, football pools and other gambling in the 1990s and 2000s, larger winners compared with smaller ones
- Outcome
- Smoking, how often a person goes out for a drink, mental health and self-assessed general health
- References
- Apouey, Benedicte; Clark, Andrew E. (2015). Winning big but feeling no better? The effect of lottery prizes on physical and mental health. Health Economics 24(5): 516-538. doi:10.1002/hec.3035
Causal evidence
Whether redlining and traffic shape the air a neighborhood receives
- Design
- Boundary design; difference-in-differences
- Population
- Neighborhoods on either side of 1930s Home Owners' Loan Corporation grade boundaries within cities (Salazar-Miranda and coauthors); births to mothers living near toll plazas and to mothers living farther away, before and after E-ZPass reduced congestion at the plazas (Currie and Walker)
- Outcome
- Current and projected heat and flood risk, tree canopy and permeable ground (Salazar-Miranda and coauthors); prematurity and low birth weight (Currie and Walker)
- Chapter
- Chapter 5.3, Air pollution
- References
- Salazar-Miranda, Arianna; Conzelmann, Claire; Phan, Toan; Hoffman, Jeremy (2024). Long-term effects of redlining on climate risk exposure. Nature Cities 1(6): 436-444. doi:10.1038/s44284-024-00076-y
- Currie, Janet; Walker, Reed (2011). Traffic Congestion and Infant Health: Evidence from E-ZPass. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3(1): 65-90. doi:10.1257/app.3.1.65
Study evidence
Siting of hazardous-waste facilities and neighborhood demographics
- Design
- Longitudinal comparison of siting
- Population
- Neighborhoods around commercial hazardous-waste facilities sited between 1966 and 1995, at the time of siting and in later census years
- Outcome
- Shares of people of color and of low-income residents in the neighborhoods, at siting and in later census years
- Chapter
- Chapter 5.3, Air pollution
- References
- Mohai, Paul; Saha, Robin (2015). Which came first, people or pollution? Assessing the disparate siting and post-siting demographic change hypotheses of environmental injustice. Environmental Research Letters 10(11): 115008. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/115008
Causal evidence
Moving to Opportunity and measured obesity and diabetes
- Design
- Randomized housing-voucher experiment
- Population
- Women with children living in public housing in high-poverty census tracts in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York who volunteered for a housing-voucher lottery run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 1994 and 1998, and were surveyed from 2008 to 2010 (Ludwig and coauthors)
- Outcome
- Measured body mass index in the categories used to define obesity and extreme obesity, and measured glycated hemoglobin in the range used to define diabetes (Ludwig and coauthors)
- References
- Ludwig, Jens; Sanbonmatsu, Lisa; Gennetian, Lisa; Adam, Emma; Duncan, Greg J.; Katz, Lawrence F.; Kessler, Ronald C.; Kling, Jeffrey R.; Lindau, Stacy Tessler; Whitaker, Robert C.; McDade, Thomas W. (2011). Neighborhoods, Obesity, and Diabetes: A Randomized Social Experiment. New England Journal of Medicine 365(16): 1509-1519. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1103216
Causal evidence
Whether moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood changes health and later income
- Design
- Randomized housing-voucher experiment
- Population
- Women who enrolled in the Moving to Opportunity experiment from public housing in high-poverty census tracts, randomly assigned from 1994 to 1998 to a voucher usable only in a low-poverty tract, an unrestricted voucher or no voucher, and surveyed in 2008 to 2010 (Ludwig and coauthors); the children of those families, followed through tax records into their mid-twenties (Chetty, Hendren and Katz)
- Outcome
- Glycated hemoglobin level, a marker of diabetes, and body-mass index (Ludwig and coauthors); annual income in the mid-twenties (Chetty, Hendren and Katz)
- References
- Ludwig, Jens; Sanbonmatsu, Lisa; Gennetian, Lisa; Adam, Emma; Duncan, Greg J.; Katz, Lawrence F.; Kessler, Ronald C.; Kling, Jeffrey R.; Lindau, Stacy Tessler; Whitaker, Robert C.; McDade, Thomas W. (2011). Neighborhoods, Obesity, and Diabetes: A Randomized Social Experiment. New England Journal of Medicine 365(16): 1509-1519. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1103216
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel; Katz, Lawrence F. (2016). The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. American Economic Review 106(4): 855-902. doi:10.1257/aer.20150572
Causal evidence
A randomized test of remediating vacant lots
- Design
- Cluster randomized controlled trial
- Population
- Vacant lots in Philadelphia, grouped into clusters of neighboring lots and randomly assigned to remediation, trash cleanup only or no treatment, and the residents living near them
- Outcome
- Police-reported gun assaults around the lots and residents' reports of feeling safer
- References
- Branas, Charles C.; South, Eugenia; Kondo, Michelle C.; Hohl, Bernadette C.; Bourgois, Philippe; Wiebe, Douglas J.; MacDonald, John M. (2018). Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(12): 2946-2951. doi:10.1073/pnas.1718503115
Causal evidence
Naloxone access laws and opioid deaths
- Design
- Difference-in-differences, staggered state adoption
- Population
- States before and after adopting each type of law that widened access to naloxone, compared with states that had not adopted it, in 2005 to 2016 (Abouk, Pacula and Powell); the same variation in the timing of state laws (Doleac and Mukherjee)
- Outcome
- Fatal opioid overdoses (Abouk, Pacula and Powell); opioid-related emergency room visits, opioid-related theft and opioid-related deaths (Doleac and Mukherjee)
- References
- Abouk, Rahi; Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo; Powell, David (2019). Association between state laws facilitating pharmacy distribution of naloxone and risk of fatal overdose. JAMA Internal Medicine 179(6): 805-811. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.0272
- Doleac, Jennifer L.; Mukherjee, Anita (2022). The effects of naloxone access laws on opioid abuse, mortality, and crime. Journal of Law and Economics 65(2): 211-238. doi:10.1086/719588
Study evidence
Whether partnership moves with the ladder score
- Design
- Longitudinal panel following the same people over time
- Population
- Single people in the German Socio-Economic Panel who later married, compared with people who stayed single (Stutzer and Frey); people in the same panel followed through changes in marital status (Lucas and colleagues)
- Outcome
- Life satisfaction, and whether single people later married (Stutzer and Frey); life satisfaction before and after changes in marital status (Lucas and colleagues)
- References
- Stutzer, Alois; Frey, Bruno S. (2006). Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?. The Journal of Socio-Economics 35(2): 326-347. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2005.11.043
- Lucas, Richard E.; Clark, Andrew E.; Georgellis, Yannis; Diener, Ed (2003). Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(3): 527-539. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.3.527
Causal evidence
Whether an offer to move to a less poor neighborhood changes how happy adults say they are
- Design
- Randomized housing-voucher experiment
- Population
- Adults from low-income families in public housing in five cities, assigned by lottery to an offer of a voucher usable only in a lower-poverty neighborhood, an offer of an unrestricted voucher or no offer, and surveyed a decade or more later
- Outcome
- A standardized answer to one question about how happy things are these days, and adult economic self-sufficiency
- References
- Ludwig, Jens; Duncan, Greg J.; Gennetian, Lisa A.; Katz, Lawrence F.; Kessler, Ronald C.; Kling, Jeffrey R.; Sanbonmatsu, Lisa (2012). Neighborhood effects on the long-term well-being of low-income adults. Science 337(6101): 1505-1510. doi:10.1126/science.1224648
Causal evidence
Social media and the mental health of college students
- Design
- Staggered difference-in-differences across colleges (natural experiment)
- Population
- Students at US colleges that received Facebook at different times between 2004 and 2006, in survey data on student mental health
- Outcome
- Student mental health, including reporting poor mental health that impaired academic performance
- References
- Braghieri, Luca; Levy, Ro'ee; Makarin, Alexey (2022). Social media and mental health. American Economic Review 112(11): 3660-3693. doi:10.1257/aer.20211218
Volume 3. The ledger
Causal evidence
What eligibility rules and cash benefits change for the people they reach
- Design
- Regression discontinuity; instrumental variables (examiner assignment); difference-in-differences
- Population
- Patients admitted through the emergency department to California hospitals with conditions whose admission rates did not differ between weekdays and weekends, just below and just above the age of Medicare eligibility (Card, Dobkin and Maestas); applicants for disability insurance, assigned to examiners who differ in how often they allow claims (Maestas, Mullen and Strand); applicants near two age thresholds in the disability determination rules (Deshpande, Gross and Su); people born just before and just after January 1917, the cutoff of the Social Security benefit notch, with other cohorts as controls (Snyder and Evans)
- Outcome
- Treatment received and mortality in the days after admission (Card, Dobkin and Maestas); work by applicants on the margin of allowance (Maestas, Mullen and Strand); bankruptcy and foreclosure (Deshpande, Gross and Su); mortality across birth cohorts (Snyder and Evans)
- References
- Card, David; Dobkin, Carlos; Maestas, Nicole (2009). Does Medicare Save Lives?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(2): 597-636. doi:10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.597
- Maestas, Nicole; Mullen, Kathleen J.; Strand, Alexander (2013). Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt. American Economic Review 103(5): 1797-1829. doi:10.1257/aer.103.5.1797
- Deshpande, Manasi; Gross, Tal; Su, Yalun (2021). Disability and Distress: The Effect of Disability Programs on Financial Outcomes. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 13(2): 151-178. doi:10.1257/app.20190709
- Snyder, Stephen E.; Evans, William N. (2006). The Effect of Income on Mortality: Evidence from the Social Security Notch. The Review of Economics and Statistics 88(3): 482-495. doi:10.1162/rest.88.3.482
Study evidence
Whether the midlife low happens within a person's own life
- Design
- Individual fixed-effects panels
- Population
- People followed in the German Socio-Economic Panel, the British Household Panel Survey and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, each person compared with their own average (Frijters and Beatton); people in four data sets, using only within-person changes (Cheng, Powdthavee and Oswald)
- Outcome
- Happiness by age (Frijters and Beatton); well-being by age (Cheng, Powdthavee and Oswald)
- References
- Frijters, Paul; Beatton, Tony (2012). The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 82(2-3): 525-542. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2012.03.008
- Cheng, Terence C.; Powdthavee, Nattavudh; Oswald, Andrew J. (2017). Longitudinal evidence for a midlife nadir in human well-being: results from four data sets. The Economic Journal 127(599): 126-142. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12256
Causal evidence
Whether growing up in a different place changes a child's adult income
- Design
- Movers design
- Population
- Children born in 1980 to 1988 whose families moved once between commuting zones, in federal tax records, compared by age at the move, including siblings in the same family
- Outcome
- Children's adult income ranks, compared with those of children of permanent residents of the destination at the same parent income
- References
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel (2018). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(3): 1107-1162. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy007
Causal evidence
Whether places change children's incomes and whether housing costs steer migration
- Design
- Movers design; Bartik-type comparisons of state income convergence, split by predetermined land-use regulation and by land availability
- Population
- Children whose families moved between counties and commuting zones, compared by age at the move, including siblings in the same family (Chetty and Hendren); US states from 1940 to 2010, split by land-use regulation and by land availability (Ganong and Shoag)
- Outcome
- Children's adult outcomes (Chetty and Hendren); convergence of state incomes and the migration of low-skill workers (Ganong and Shoag)
- References
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel (2018). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(3): 1107-1162. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy007
- Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel (2018). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133(3): 1163-1228. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy006
- Ganong, Peter; Shoag, Daniel (2017). Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?. Journal of Urban Economics 102: 76-90. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2017.07.002