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Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration

Ellora DerenoncourtEconomics劳动经济学FT50
American Economic Review2022-01-28Princeton UniversityDOI
Citations296
Influential12
References117
Semantic Scholar

This paper shows that racial composition shocks during the Great Migration (1940–1970) reduced the gains from growing up in the northern United States for Black families and can explain 27 percent of the region’s racial upward mobility gap today. I identify northern Black share increases by interacting pre-1940 Black migrants’ location choices with predicted southern county out-migration. Locational changes, not negative selection of families, explain lower upward mobility, with persistent segregation and increased crime and policing as plausible mechanisms. The case of the Great Migration provides a more nuanced view of moving to opportunity when destination reactions are taken into account. (JEL H75, H76, J15, J62, K42, N32, R23)

EconomicsEconomic geographyDemographic economicsSelection (genetic algorithm)Push and pullDevelopment economicsUrban, Neighborhood, and Segregation StudiesMigration and Labor DynamicsRegional Economics and Spatial Analysis