American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality
American Economic Review
vol. 103,
no. 3, May 2013
(pp. 232–37)
Abstract
This paper reviews the evidence on the efficacy of neighborhood and school interventions in improving the long-run outcomes of children growing up in poor families. We focus on studies exploiting exogenous sources of variation in neighborhoods and schools and which examine at least medium-term outcomes. Higher-quality neighborhoods improve family safety, adult subjective well-being and health, and girls' mental health. But they have no detectable impact on youth human capital, labor market outcomes, or risky behaviors. In contrast, higher-quality schools can improve children's academic achievement and can have longer-term positive impacts of increasing educational attainment and earnings and reducing incarceration and teen pregnancy.Citation
Fryer, Roland, G. Jr., and Lawrence F. Katz. 2013. "Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality." American Economic Review 103 (3): 232–37. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.232Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I32 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
- I38 Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics