Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/46044 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5193
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The number of studies investigating neighbourhood effects has increased rapidly over the last two decades. Although many of these studies claim to have found evidence for neighbourhood effects, most 'evidence' is likely the result of reversed causality. The main challenge in modelling neighbourhood effects is the (econometric) identification of causal effects. The most severe problem is selection bias as a result of selective sorting into neighbourhoods. This paper argues that in order to further our understanding of neighbourhood effects we should explicitly incorporate neighbourhood sorting into our models. Neighbourhood effect studies are in the situation where the processes behind one of its key methodological problems (selection bias) are also critical to fully understand the neighbourhood context itself. It is thus remarkable that residential mobility and neighbourhood sorting has been almost completely ignored in the neighbourhood effects literature.
Subjects: 
neighbourhoods
selective mobility
neighbourhood effects
selection bias
migration
residential mobility
JEL: 
I30
J60
R23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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