Working Paper: NBER ID: w16435
Authors: Leah Platt Boustan; Allison Shertzer
Abstract: The share of metropolitan residents living in central cities declined dramatically from 1950 to 2000. We argue that cities would have lost even further ground if not for demographic trends such as renewed immigration, delayed child bearing, and a decline in the share of households headed by veterans. We provide causal estimates of the effect of children on residential location using the birth of twins. The effect of veteran status is identified from a discontinuity in the probability of military service during and after the mass mobilization for World War II. Our results suggest that these changes in demographic composition were strong enough to bolster city population but not to fully counteract socio-economic factors favoring suburban growth.
Keywords: demography; urban decline; suburbanization; veteran status; household composition
JEL Codes: J11; N92; R23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Birth of twins (J12) | Household size (D10) |
| Household size (D10) | Likelihood of living in central city (R23) |
| Demographic trends (J11) | Share of metropolitan population living in central cities (R23) |
| Veteran status (J45) | Residential location (R31) |