IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/018591.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Train to Opportunity: the Effect of Infrastructure on Intergenerational Mobility

Author

Listed:
  • Julián Costas-Fernández
  • José-Alberto Guerra
  • Myra Mohnen

Abstract

Can transport infrastructure promote intergenerational mobility? This paper estimates the causal impact of the railroad network on intergenerational occupation mobility in nineteenth century England and Wales. We create a new dataset of father and son pairs by linking individuals across the 100% censuses of 1851, 1881 and 1911. By geolocating individuals down to the street level, we measure access to the railroad network using the distance to the nearest train station. To address the non-random access to the railroad network, we create a hypothetical railway map based solely on geographic cost consideration. We fi nd that sons who grew up one standard deviation (roughly 5 km) closer to the train station are 6 percentage points more likely to work in a different occupation than their father and 5 percentage points more likely to be upward mobile. Access to the railroad network bene tted families at the top and bottom of the occupational ranking. Through a decomposition exercise, we fi nd that the majority of upward mobility is driven by improvements in local labour opportunities

Suggested Citation

  • Julián Costas-Fernández & José-Alberto Guerra & Myra Mohnen, 2020. "Train to Opportunity: the Effect of Infrastructure on Intergenerational Mobility," Documentos CEDE 18591, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:018591
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/48003/dcede2020-48.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baines,Edward, 2015. "History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108080934.
    2. Jantti, Markus & Bratsberg, Bernt & Roed, Knut & Raaum, Oddbjorn & Naylor, Robin & Osterbacka, Eva & Bjorklund, Anders & Eriksson, Tor, 2005. "American exceptionalism in a new light: a comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the United States," Economic Research Papers 269752, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. Luigi Pascali, 2017. "The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade, and Economic Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(9), pages 2821-2854, September.
    4. Dave Donaldson & Richard Hornbeck, 2016. "Railroads and American Economic Growth: A "Market Access" Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 799-858.
    5. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    6. Claudia Olivetti & M. Daniele Paserman, 2015. "In the Name of the Son (and the Daughter): Intergenerational Mobility in the United States, 1850-1940," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2695-2724, August.
    7. Filipe Campante & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2018. "Long-Range Growth: Economic Development in the Global Network of Air Links," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(3), pages 1395-1458.
    8. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2012. "Urban Growth and Transportation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1407-1440.
    9. Benjamin Faber, 2014. "Trade Integration, Market Size, and Industrialization: Evidence from China's National Trunk Highway System," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 1046-1070.
    10. Guy Michaels, 2008. "The Effect of Trade on the Demand for Skill: Evidence from the Interstate Highway System," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 683-701, November.
    11. Steven Haider & Gary Solon, 2006. "Life-Cycle Variation in the Association between Current and Lifetime Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1308-1320, September.
    12. Grawe, Nathan D., 2006. "Lifecycle bias in estimates of intergenerational earnings persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 551-570, October.
    13. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2013. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 2041-2049, August.
    14. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    15. Jason Long, 2013. "The surprising social mobility of Victorian Britain," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, February.
    16. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    17. Paul S. Lambert & Richard L. Zijdeman & Marco H. D. Van Leeuwen & Ineke Maas & Kenneth Prandy, 2013. "The Construction of HISCAM: A Stratification Scale Based on Social Interactions for Historical Comparative Research," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 77-89, June.
    18. Gary Solon, 2002. "Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 59-66, Summer.
    19. Jose-Alberto Guerra & Myra Mohnen, 2022. "Multinomial Choice with Social Interactions: Occupations in Victorian London," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 736-747, October.
    20. Alberto Alesina & Sebastian Hohmann & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 1-35, January.
    21. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Infrastructure and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1730-1745.
    22. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    23. Long, Jason, 2005. "Rural-Urban Migration and Socioeconomic Mobility in Victorian Britain," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(1), pages 1-35, March.
    24. Nina Boberg-Fazlic & Paul Sharp, 2013. "North and South: Social Mobility and Welfare Spending in Preindustrial England," Working Papers 0037, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    25. Yu Xie & Alexandra Killewald, 2013. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 2003-2020, August.
    26. Piketty, Thomas, 2000. "Theories of persistent inequality and intergenerational mobility," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 429-476, Elsevier.
    27. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1163-1228.
    28. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2012. "Europe's Tired, Poor, Huddled Masses: Self-Selection and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 1832-1856, August.
    29. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2013. "Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1109-1137, June.
    30. Joseph P. Ferrie, 2005. "The End of American Exceptionalism? Mobility in the U.S. Since 1850," NBER Working Papers 11324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. Gregory Clark & Neil Cummins, 2015. "Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in England, 1858–2012: Surnames and Social Mobility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(582), pages 61-85, February.
    32. W. W. Rostow, 1959. "The Stages Of Economic Growth," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, August.
    33. Molly Lipscomb & A. Mushfiq Mobarak & Tania Barham, 2013. "Development Effects of Electrification: Evidence from the Topographic Placement of Hydropower Plants in Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 200-231, April.
    34. Lindert, Peter H., 2000. "Three centuries of inequality in Britain and America," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 167-216, Elsevier.
    35. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2018. "Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the US and Britain, 1850–1911," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 422-445, July.
    36. Joseph P. Ferrie, 2005. "History Lessons: The End of American Exceptionalism? Mobility in the United States Since 1850," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 199-215, Summer.
    37. C. E. Snow, 1931. "Emigration from Great Britain," NBER Chapters, in: International Migrations, Volume II: Interpretations, pages 237-260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2014. "A Nation of Immigrants: Assimilation and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(3), pages 467-506.
    39. R. V. Jackson, 1987. "The structure of pay in nineteenth-century Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 40(4), pages 561-570, November.
    40. Casson, Mark, 2009. "The World's First Railway System: Enterprise, Competition, and Regulation on the Railway Network in Victorian Britain," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199213979, Decembrie.
    41. Martha J. Bailey & Connor Cole & Morgan Henderson & Catherine Massey, 2020. "How Well Do Automated Linking Methods Perform? Lessons from US Historical Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 997-1044, December.
    42. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Richard Pomfret, 2021. "Central Asian Economies: Thirty Years After Dissolution of the Soviet Union," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(4), pages 537-556, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Gobillon, Laurent & Zylberberg, Yanos, 2022. "Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Gobillon, Laurent & Zylberberg, Yanos, 2022. "Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    3. Zachary Ward, 2023. "Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3213-3248, December.
    4. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Yu-Wei Luke Chu & Ming-Jen Lin, 2020. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in Taiwan: 1990–2010," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 11-45, July.
    6. Dylan Shane Connor & Michael Storper, 2020. "The changing geography of social mobility in the United States," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(48), pages 30309-30317, December.
    7. Elisa Jácome & Ilyana Kuziemko & Suresh Naidu, 2021. "Mobility for All: Representative Intergenerational Mobility Estimates over the 20th Century," Working Papers 302, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    8. Jørgen Modalsli, 2017. "Intergenerational Mobility in Norway, 1865–2011," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 34-71, January.
    9. Chu, Luke Yu-Wei & Lin, Ming-Jen, 2016. "Economic development and intergenerational earnings mobility: Evidence from Taiwan," Working Paper Series 19495, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    10. Shiue, Carol, 2019. "Social Mobility in the Long Run: A Temporal Analysis of China from 1300 to 1900," CEPR Discussion Papers 13589, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Dribe, Martin & Eriksson, Björn & Scalone, Francesco, 2019. "Migration, marriage and social mobility: Women in Sweden 1880–1900," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 93-111.
    12. Bogart, Dan & You, Xuesheng & Alvarez-Palau, Eduard J. & Satchell, Max & Shaw-Taylor, Leigh, 2022. "Railways, divergence, and structural change in 19th century England and Wales," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Barbara Castillo Rico, 2020. "Trends in intergenerational homeownership mobility in France between 1960-2015," AMSE Working Papers 2008, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    14. Collins, William J. & Zimran, Ariell, 2019. "The economic assimilation of Irish Famine migrants to the United States," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Adrian Adermon & Mikael Lindahl & Mårten Palme, 2021. "Dynastic Human Capital, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1523-1548, May.
    16. Giacomin Favre, 2019. "Bias in social mobility estimates with historical data: evidence from Swiss microdata," ECON - Working Papers 329, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    17. Philipp Ager & Leah Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2021. "The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners after the Civil War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(11), pages 3767-3794, November.
    18. Berger, Thor & Engzell, Per & Eriksson, Björn & Molinder, Jakob, 2023. "Social Mobility in Sweden before the Welfare State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 431-463, June.
    19. Nina Boberg-Fazlić & Paul Sharp, 2018. "North and south: long-run social mobility in England and attitudes toward welfare," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 12(2), pages 251-276, May.
    20. Stephan Maurer & Ferdinand Rauch, 2023. "Economic geography aspects of the Panama Canal," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 142-162.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intergenerational mobility; infrastructure; spatial mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    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:col:000089:018591. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.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.