Place, Jobs, Peers and the Teenage Years: Exposure Effects and Intergenerational Mobility
75 Pages Posted: 19 Jun 2018
Date Written: June 1, 2018
Abstract
I show that where a child grows up has a causal effect on their adult income, but that place matters most in the teenage years. I use variation in the age at which Australian children move to identify this pattern of place exposure effects. I explore two potential explanations. First, this pattern is partly explained by the fact that spending more years in a place in adolescence lifts the probability of entering the associated local labor market and earning any corresponding wage premium. Second, I identify long-lasting peer effects using cross-cohort variation in peer parental income among permanent postcode residents.
Keywords: Intergenerational mobility, neighborhood effects, local labor markets, peer effects
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