In a revealing use of big data, Raj Chetty and his colleagues at the Equality of Opportunity Project used anonymous tax records to track the childhood-to-adulthood income of individuals who grew up in the United States. The results show that the neighborhoods and metropolitan areas where these individuals were raised have a major impact on their lifelong economic prospects.
Surprisingly, children from low-income families who grow up in certain neighborhoods—particularly those with mixed-income demographics and lower levels of racial segregation—fare much better economically.
