The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility

Chetty, Raj; Friedman, John N.; Hendren, Nathaniel; Jones, Maggie R.; Porter, Sonya R.

doi:10.1257/aer.20200108

Abstract

We construct a public atlas of mean outcomes in adulthood by childhood Census tract. Outcomes vary sharply across neighborhoods: for children whose parents earn $27,000, the standard deviation of mean household income in adulthood is $10,420 across tracts within counties. Only half the variation in outcomes is explained by traditional measures of neighborhood opportunity like poverty rates. Experimental and quasi-experimental estimates indicate that 60% of the variation in outcomes across neighborhoods is driven by causal effects. We demonstrate how our statistics can be applied to better target policies to improve low-opportunity areas and help families move to affordable high-opportunity areas.

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