American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 2, February 2022
(pp. 369–408)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
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.Citation
Derenoncourt, Ellora. 2022. "Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration." American Economic Review, 112 (2): 369–408. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20200002Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- H76 State and Local Government: Other Expenditure Categories
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J62 Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
- K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
- N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics