Biography: Kareem Haggag is an Assistant Professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management in the Behavioral Decision Making area. He is also a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Haggag studies topics at the intersections of economics, political science, and psychology. Much of his research examines the roots and consequences of biases in the contexts of consumer choice, finance, education, voting, and labor markets.

The Effects of Racial Segregation on Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from Historical Railroad Placements (with Eric Chyn and Bryan Stuart)

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on the causal impacts of city-wide racial segregation on intergenerational mobility. We use an instrumental variable approach that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in segregation due to the arrangement of railroad tracks in the nineteenth century (Ananat 2011). Our analysis finds that greater segregation reduces upward mobility for Black children from households across the income distribution and White children from low-income households. Moreover, segregation lowers academic achievement while increasing incarceration rates and teenage birth rates. An analysis of mechanisms shows that segregation reduces government spending, weakens support for anti-poverty policies, and increases racially conservative attitudes among White residents.