Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality

American Economic Review · 2013 · Volume 103 · Issue 3

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.

Keywords

Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions, Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement, Analysis of Education, Measurement and Analysis of Poverty, Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs, Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs, Economics of Minorities, Races, and Immigrants, Non-labor Discrimination, Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration, Regional Labor Markets, Population, Neighborhood Characteristics

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