Working Paper: NBER ID: w13052
Authors: David Card; Alexandre Mas; Jesse Rothstein
Abstract: In a classic paper, Schelling (1971) showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences: once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a critical "tipping point," all the whites leave. We use regression discontinuity methods and Census tract data from 1970 through 2000 to test for discontinuities in the dynamics of neighborhood racial composition. White population flows exhibit tipping-like behavior in most cities, with a distribution of tipping points ranging from 5% to 20% minority share. The estimated discontinuities are robust to controls for a wide variety of neighborhood characteristics, and are as strong in the suburbs as in tracts close to high-minority neighborhoods, ruling out the main alternative explanations for apparent tipping behavior. In contrast to white population flows, there is no systematic evidence that rents or housing prices exhibit non-linearities around the tipping point. Finally, we relate the location of the estimated tipping points in different cities to measures of the racial attitudes of whites, and find that cities with more tolerant whites have higher tipping points.
Keywords: Segregation; Tipping Points; White Flight; Neighborhood Dynamics
JEL Codes: J15; R21; R31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| higher racial tolerance among whites (J15) | higher tipping points (F69) |
| minority share increases (G34) | location of tipping points is influenced by racial attitudes (J15) |
| minority share in a neighborhood exceeds critical tipping point (R23) | significant outflow of white residents (R23) |
| tipping point (F61) | outflow of white residents (R23) |