IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/econom/2021-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration

Author

Listed:
  • Ellora Derenoncourt

    (Princeton University)

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% 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellora Derenoncourt, 2021. "Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration," Working Papers 2021-17, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2021-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gno1z4hzns4c6u/derenoncourt_2021.pdf?dl=0
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muñoz, Ercio, 2021. "Does it Matter Where You Grow up? Childhood Exposure Effects in Latin America and the Caribbean," Research Department working papers 1843, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Marco Tabellini, 2024. "The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 5-46, March.
    3. Eden, Maya, 2023. "Quantifying racial discrimination in the 1944 G.I. bill," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Traettino, Salvador, 2023. "Migración forzada y finanzas públicas locales: evidencia de los municipios en Colombia," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12926, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Rustam Jamilov, 2022. "Social Capital and Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers 2219, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    6. Salvador Traettino, 2022. "Migración forzada y finanzas públicas locales: Evidencia de los municipios en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 20335, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    migration;

    JEL classification:

    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2021-17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.