This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. ASSA Annual Meeting
  3. 2027
  4. Preliminary Program
  5. Intergenerational Mobility I: Geography
« Back to Results

Intergenerational Mobility I: Geography

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 3, 2027 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (EST)

Marriott Marquis Washington DC
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Corbin Miller, Internal Revenue Service

How Do Neighborhoods and Firms Affect Intergenerational Mobility?

David Card
,
University of California-Berkeley
Jesse Rothstein
,
University of California-Berkeley
Moises Yi
,
U.S. Census Bureau

Abstract

We use data from the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics linked to the 2000 Census to study intergenerational earnings mobility in the United States. We augment the standard intergenerational transmission model relating children’s log earnings to those of their parent with an additional term representing mean log parent earnings in the childhood neighborhood. The between-neighborhood intergenerational relationship is twice as strong as the within- neighborhood relationship, even after adjusting for measurement error in parents’ earnings. Moreover, mean earnings of the parents in a neighborhood capture over 80% of the variation in unrestricted neighborhood effects that reflect differences in “absolute mobility”. Next, we use an AKM framework to decompose parents’, children’s, and neighboring parents’ earnings into person effects and establishment premiums. Children’s person effects are mainly influenced by parents’ and neighbors’ person effects, whereas children’s establishment premiums are mainly influenced by parents’ and neighbors’ establishment premiums. These patterns point to separate channels for human capital and access to jobs in the intergenerational transmission process. Finally, we explore the implications for the Black-white earnings gap. Neighborhoods explain 30% of the Black-white gap in children’s earnings conditional on parents’ earnings, operating largely through gaps in average person effects. Conditional on neighborhood average earnings, children from neighborhoods with higher Black shares achieve higher adult earnings.

Ranking Places by Intergenerational Mobility and Revealed Preference

John Klopfer
,
University of Hong Kong
Corbin Miller
,
Internal Revenue Service

Abstract

Can places be ranked and recommended to families based on how they improve children’s outcomes in adulthood? Critics of related programs observe that rankings are based on estimates, and may be unreliable because of bias or noise in the estimates. In this paper, we use new administrative data and new computational methods to improve quasi-experimental estimates of the exposure effects of commuting zones (CZs) on children’s adult outcomes in the U.S., reducing noise by two orders of magnitude. We show that estimated exposure effects are unbiased, and measure bias in observed outcomes used in most rankings. We provide a more reliable ranking of CZs based on exposure effects, which could be used to inform families about where and when to move. However, an alternative ranking based on where parents actually move suggests that parents prefer places with negative exposure effects. These places have positive earnings premia, setting up a key tradeoff for programs encouraging family relocation.

On the Determinants of Young Adult Outcomes: Impacts of Randomly Assigned Neighborhoods for Children in Military Families

Laura Kawano
,
University of Michigan
Bruce Sacerdote
,
Dartmouth College
William Skimmyhorn
,
College of William & Mary
Michael Stevens
,
U.S. Treasury

Abstract

We use quasi-random assignments for 725,000 children in U.S. military families to show that childhood locations have large impacts on SAT scores, college-going and earnings, and tax credit utilization. Exposure to higher levels of adult education raises college attendance and exposure to higher median incomes increase a child's earnings at 26. Exposure effects are convex in the number of exposure years and age at exposure matters, but there are little complementarities in location effects across ages. Neighborhood effects are remarkably similar across race and sex. The Army's quasi-random assignment likely shrinks earnings gaps among young adults by equalizing the average neighborhoods for black and white children.

Shifting the Land of Opportunity: The Changing Role of Local Labor Markets

Huiren Tan
,
National University of Singapore

Abstract

The geography of intergenerational mobility in America has evolved---income mobility was greater along the coastal regions in the past but is concentrated in the center of the country today. One reason for the shift may be the diminishing importance of local labor market conditions for economic mobility. To investigate this, I derive the expected percentile rank of individuals who were raised in a given locality, based on the labor market conditions they are exposed to in adulthood. This requires both information on migration patterns and estimates of the local wage premium. Comparing the expected ranks to actual measures of intergenerational mobility, I find that labor market conditions explain less of the variation in intergenerational mobility today compared with the past.
JEL Classifications
  • J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
  • R2 - Household Analysis