Segregation 8

Question 1

What research design does Guryan (2004) use to study school desegregation?

Answer 1

A staggered, court-ordered desegregation rollout after Brown v. Board of Education, exploiting variation in timing across districts.

Question 2

What is the estimated effect of desegregation on Black students’ dropout rates?

Answer 2

It reduces Black dropout rates by about 3 percentage points over the decade of desegregation.

Question 3

Does desegregation affect White students’ dropout rates?

Answer 3

No—there is no detectable effect on White students’ dropout rates.

Question 4

What happens to students per teacher in districts that receive an admission offer?

Answer 4

The ratio falls by 1.6 students per teacher, indicating smaller class sizes.

Question 5

How does an offer affect per-pupil spending and average test-score percentile?

Answer 5

Spending rises by about $4,240 per pupil; the district’s average test-score percentile increases by 57.3 points.

Question 6

What changes occur in special-education and limited English proficiency (LEP) shares?

Answer 6

The % in special ed goes up by 3.5 ppt, while the % LEP falls by 60.2 ppt.

Question 7

After an offer, how does the district’s % White and % Black enrollment change?

Answer 7

% White rises by 72.7 ppt; % Black falls by 20.0 ppt.

Question 8

What happens to % Asian and % Hispanic shares?

Answer 8

% Asian rises by 11.8 ppt; % Hispanic falls by 56.5 ppt.

Question 9

What is the impact of an admission offer on standardized math and English scores?

Answer 9

Math scores rise by 0.05 SD (not significant); English scores by 0.20 SD (p < 0.05).

Question 10

How does an offer affect special-education placement and history scores?

Answer 10

Special-ed placement increases by 0.09 ppt (p < 0.05); history scores rise by 0.28 SD (p < 0.01).

Question 11

How does an offer change college enrollment and two-year college attendance?

Answer 11

Enrollment up 8 ppt (p < 0.01); any two-year attendance up 6 ppt (p < 0.05).

Question 12

What are the effects on public college attendance and persistence?

Answer 12

Public attendance up 7 ppt (p < 0.01); persistence up 4 ppt (p < 0.05).

Question 13

What changes in arrest rates and offense types follow an offer?

Answer 13

Overall arrests rise by 4 ppt (p < 0.01); drug arrests by 2 ppt and “other” offenses by 3 ppt (both p < 0.01); no change in violent/property arrests.

Question 14

What was the Gautreaux program?

Answer 14

The first large-scale “mobility” initiative—result of a civil-rights lawsuit—using housing vouchers to desegregate public housing in Chicago.

Question 15

What was its chief focus and duration?

Answer 15

Moving Black families from segregated urban projects to whiter suburban neighborhoods over two decades (1976–1998).

Question 16

What do nearly all rigorous studies find about the effects of school segregation on Black students?

Answer 16

Black students are harmed by segregation—effects are usually quite large.

Question 17

How do these studies characterize impacts on White students?

Answer 17

Mixed: most find no effect, some harm, some benefit—often linked to whether overall resources change with desegregation.

Question 18

Why is it challenging to estimate segregation’s causal effects?

Answer 18

Segregation isn’t randomly assigned—families self-select into neighborhoods and schools.

Question 19

What research designs help overcome this?

Answer 19

Exploit court orders, lotteries, or staggered policy rollouts that create quasi-random variation in exposure to integrated settings.

Question 20

What data sources do Chyn, Collinson & Sandler (2025) link to study Gautreaux participants?

Answer 20

They link historical program records from the Gautreaux housing vouchers to decades of administrative and U.S. Census data, tracking children’s outcomes into adulthood.

Question 21

How do the authors establish causal identification of neighborhood effects?

Answer 21

They exploit the Gautreaux program’s as-if random assignment of families across placement neighborhoods—validated via sibling comparisons of differential exposure—to isolate exogenous variation.

Question 22

In the ‘Predicted Earnings at Age 24’ graph, what relationship appears between tract % White and predicted earnings?

Answer 22

There is no clear trend: predicted earnings (gold points) are roughly constant (~$9 000–$10 000) across placement tracts from 0%–100% White.

Question 23

How does the ‘Actual Earnings at Age 24’ graph differ from predicted earnings?

Answer 23

Actual earnings (navy points) rise with tract % White, showing a positive slope: children placed in whiter tracts earn substantially more by age 24 than predicted.

Question 24

What is the estimated effect of placement in less-segregated neighborhoods on homeownership?

Answer 24

Treated families have a 9.9 ppt higher probability of homeownership (β = 0.099, p<0.05) compared to control.

Question 25

Summarize the cumulative earnings impacts at ages 28, 33, and 38.

Answer 25

Compared to control, treated children earn on average: + $17,808 by age 28 (p<0.01) + $34,520 by age 33 (p<0.01) + $51,560 by age 38 (p<0.05)

Question 26

According to the paper’s summary, what broad life-cycle outcomes improve with placement in less-segregated neighborhoods?

Answer 26

Treated children experience ↑ lifetime earnings, ↑ employment rates, ↑ marriage rates, ↑ wealth.

Question 27

How does placement affect later-life neighborhood composition for participants?

Answer 27

They subsequently live in neighborhoods with ↓ Black share and ↑ White share, indicating longer-run effects on residential segregation.

Question 28

How do Gautreaux findings compare with the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment?

Answer 28

Gautreaux suggests economic desegregation (access to higher-opportunity areas) drives most gains in earnings and employment, whereas racial desegregation alone has neutral or only slightly positive economic effects.

Question 29

Beyond economic outcomes, what social effects does racial desegregation have, per the authors?

Answer 29

It alters social outcomes—neighborhood racial composition and partner selection—independently of economic changes.

Question 30

Why is sibling comparison important in validating the as-if random assignment?

Answer 30

Comparing siblings placed in different tracts controls for family background: any systematic outcome differences can be attributed to neighborhood variation, not household factors.

Question 31

What does the divergence between predicted and actual earnings tell us?

Answer 31

Predicted earnings, based on pre-program characteristics, do not vary with tract whiteness, but actual earnings do—implying a causal neighborhood effect.

Question 32

Which statistical significance levels are reported for the homeownership and earnings effects?

Answer 32

Homeownership β=0.099 (p<0.05); cumulative earnings βs significant at p<0.01 (ages 28 & 33) and p<0.05 (age 38).

Question 33

What is the policy implication of Chyn, Collinson & Sandler’s Gautreaux analysis?

Answer 33

Well-designed housing mobility programs that reduce economic and residential segregation can yield large, persistent gains in Black families’ economic and social well-being.

Question 34

Describe the long-run scope of the Gautreaux program.

Answer 34

Operated ~1976–1998 in Chicago, it was the largest U.S. residential desegregation effort, moving low-income Black families into whiter, higher-opportunity suburbs.