Tag: Raj Chetty

Must-read: Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren: “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure Effects and County-Level Estimates”

Posted on by Brad DeLong

Must-Read: Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren: The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure Effects and County-Level Estimates: “Studying more than five million families who move across counties in the U.S….

…we present quasi-experimental evidence that neighborhoods affect intergenerational mobility through childhood exposure fects. In particular, the outcomes of children whose families move to a better neighborhood – as measured by the outcomes of children already living there – improve linearly in proportion to the time they spend growing up in that area. We distinguish the causal effects of neighborhoods from confounding factors by… outcomes of siblings… moves triggered by displacement shocks, and… sharp variation in predicted place effects across birth cohorts, genders, and quantiles. We also document analogous childhood exposure effects for college attendance, teenage birth rates, and marriage rates….

For children growing up in families at the 25th percentile of the income distribution, each year of childhood exposure to a one standard deviation (SD) better county increases income in adulthood by 0.5%. Hence, growing up in a one SD better county from birth increases a child’s income by approximately 10%. Low-income children are most likely to succeed in counties that have less concentrated poverty, less income inequality, better schools, a larger share of two-parent families, and lower crime rates. Boys’ outcomes vary more across areas than girls, and boys have especially poor outcomes in highly-segregated areas. In urban areas, better areas have higher house prices, but our analysis uncovers significant variation in neighborhood quality even conditional on prices.

Must-see: Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren: “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility”

Posted on by Brad DeLong

Must-See: Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren: The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: W@4PM, Wells-Fargo Room: Stream: http://bluejeans.com/617756972 : “We characterize the effects of neighborhoods on children’s earnings and other outcomes in adult- hood…

…by studying more than five million families who move across counties in the U.S. Our analysis consists of two parts. In the first part, we present quasi-experimental evidence that neighborhoods affect intergenerational mobility through childhood exposure effects. In partiular, the outcomes of children whose families move to a better neighborhood – as measured by the outcomes of children already living there – improve linearly in proportion to the time they spend growing up in that area. We distinguish the causal effects of neighborhoods from confounding factors by comparing the outcomes of siblings within families, studying moves triggered by displacement shocks, and exploiting sharp variation in predicted place effects across birth cohorts, genders, and quantiles. We also document analogous childhood exposure effects for college attendance, teenage birth rates, and marriage rates. In the second part of the paper, we identify the causal effect of growing up in every county in the U.S. by estimating a fixed effects model identified from families who move across counties with children of different ages. We use these estimates to decompose observed intergenerational mobility into a causal and sorting component in each county. For children growing up in families at the 25th percentile of the income distribution, each year of childhood exposure to a one standard deviation (SD) better county increases income in adulthood by 0.5%. Hence, growing up in a one SD better county from birth increases a child’s income by approximately 10%. Low-income children are most likely to succeed in counties that have less concentrated poverty, less income inequality, better schools, a larger share of two-parent families, and lower crime rates. Boys’ outcomes vary more across areas than girls, and boys have especially poor outcomes in highly-segregated areas. In urban areas, better areas have higher house prices, but our analysis uncovers significant variation in neighborhood quality even conditional on prices.

Must-read: Jim Zarroli: Raj Chetty et al.’s Life Expectancy Study: It’s Not Just What You Make, It’s Where You Live

Posted on by Brad DeLong

Must-Read: Jim Zarroli: Life Expectancy Study: It’s Not Just What You Make, It’s Where You Live: “Poor people who reside in expensive, well-educated cities such as San Francisco…

…tend to live longer than low-income people in less affluent places, according to a study of more than a billion Social Security and tax records…. The poor tend to have shorter lifespans…. But it also says that among low-income people, big disparities exist in life expectancy from place to place, said Raj Chetty, professor of economics at Stanford University. ‘There are some places where the poor are doing quite well, gaining just as much in terms of life span as the rich, but there are other places where they’re actually going in the other direction, where the poor are living shorter lives today than they did in the past,’ Chetty said…. Low-income people in Birmingham, Ala., live about as long as the rich, but in Tampa, Fla., the poor have actually lost ground…. ‘Men in the top 1 percent distribution level live about 15 years longer than men in the bottom 1 percent on the income distribution in the United States…. Men in the bottom 1 percent have life expectancy comparable to the average life expectancy in Pakistan or Sudan.’

Since 2001, life-expectancy has increased by 2.3 years for the wealthiest 5 percent of American men and by nearly 3 percent for similarly-situated women. Meanwhile, life expectancy has increased barely at all for the poorest 5 percent…. What accounts for the disparity isn’t clear, Chetty says. It may be that some cities such as San Francisco may be better at promoting healthier lifestyles, with smoking bans, for example, or perhaps people tend to adopt healthier habits if they live in a place where everyone else is doing it, he says. The study suggests that the relationship between life expectancy and income is not iron-clad, and changes at the local level can make a big difference. ‘What our study shows is that thinking about these issues of inequality and health and life expectancy at a local level is very fruitful, and thinking about policies that change health behaviors at a local level is likely to be important,’ he says…

Raj Chetty et al.: The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014