Off the Beaten Tract: Constructing a New Neighborhood Geography Using Revealed Preference
Year: 2026
Type: report
Abstract: We construct a new neighborhood geography using a revealed preference intuition: If people disproportionately move within neighborhoods, their boundaries can be backed out from migration flows. Our "districts," which consist of about nine census tracts each, correspond to recognizable areas, with boundaries that align with physical barriers, demographic breakpoints, and government borders. District-level analyses alleviate problems of precision and dimensionality—aggregating tract intergenerational mobility estimates to districts shrinks standard errors threefold while introducing little bias. Districts also reveal new substantive patterns. Racial segregation is nearly identical at tract and district levels, pointing to mechanisms and consequences that tract-level analyses miss.
Source: Working paper
Authors: Evan Mast, Alaina Barca
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7135200329