Jue Insight: Beyond Students: Effects of University Establishment on Local Economic Mobility

dc.contributor.authorAndrews, Michael
dc.contributor.authorRussell, Lauren C.
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-07T14:07:04Z
dc.date.available2024-08-07T14:07:04Z
dc.date.issued2023-12-06
dc.description.abstractHow does the presence of a university affect local economic mobility and inequality? Existing work on universities' role in economic mobility have focused on students but have not examined the effect on local communities. We exploit historical natural experiments to answer these questions, using "runner-up" counties that were strongly considered to become university sites but were not selected for as-good-as-random reasons as counterfactuals for university counties. We find that university establishment causes greater intergenerational income mobility but also increases cross-sectional income inequality. We highlight four channels through which these effects operate: universities "hollow-out" the local labor market and provide greater opportunities to achieve top incomes, both of which increase cross-sectional inequality, while at the same time increasing educational attainment across the income distribution and fostering social interactions to high-socioeconomic status individuals, which both prevent inequality from perpetuating into intergenerational immobility.
dc.description.urihttps://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4656137
dc.format.extent47 pages
dc.genrejournal articles
dc.genrepreprints
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2pbwk-xxmu
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4656137
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/35165
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Economics Department
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.subjectHigher Education
dc.subjectEconomic Mobility
dc.subjectInequality
dc.subjectPlace-Based Policies
dc.titleJue Insight: Beyond Students: Effects of University Establishment on Local Economic Mobility
dc.typeText

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