4 ms·

The gist of this seems to be "take poor families and give them assistance to move to neighborhoods with statistically higher opportunities". Which to me seems

The gist of this seems to be "take poor families and give them assistance to move to neighborhoods with statistically higher opportunities". Which to me seems a little bit weird if taken to a broader extent - would that not lower the opportunity rates of the moved-to neighborhoods and potentially make the moved-from areas even worse off?

scottlocklin 7y ago
Chetty is regressing against the wrong thing, which is pretty typical for economists, who mostly seem to be political ideologues armed with least squares fitting and dumb models. He's basically suggesting school busing on a societal level, and we all know how well that turned out.
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y ago
  What do you mean by, "we all know how that turned out"?
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Wikipedia has an article on busing in Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_cr... It was a boon for politicians on either side. The right could say "look, it isn't working", and the left could say "we tried".
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    How this article got past the editors without mentioning “all deliberate speed...” or anything about Swann is beyond me
hogFeast 7y ago
I laughed at this. Yes, this is what basically every economist suggests because of the way questions are posed (i.e. confusing correlation with causation...if all great salesman wear Rolexes, just buy all your bad salesman Rolexes...it is so simple, how did these simple-minded, non-rigorous managers not realise this!?). Political scientists (actually, this is more policy work...where I am this is done within politics) have been looking at these questions for decades. And, about thirty or forty years ago now, they discovered that historical contingency is very important. You can't just import policies from somewhere else, you can't just move people to where the successful people are...there is other stuff going on. Unfortunately, as economists can't measure these things, they remain wholly (and often wilfully) ignorant of these points. Economists seem - boosted no doubt by laudatory articles about how precocious they were as a child - to have infinite self-confidence. Decades of research on a topic? Irrelevant. "Did you know I have tenure?". "Did you know I use lots of equations in my research? That makes me a scientist you know...rigour!". It is also baffling that someone chose to write an article about someone failing to do any significant research (particularly as so much research already exists on this topic). Perhaps doing useful research matters far less than telling everyone that you are just about to do something important...just around the corner...did you know when I got tenure btw? Very young. I am genius. I was a very smart child. Look at this photo I have of myself holding a piece of chalk when I was a child...just around the corner...
denzil_correa 7y ago
The article does touch on the answer to your question > Chetty’s pitch to the nation is that our problems have technocratic solutions, but at times I sense that he is avoiding an argument. Surely our neighborhoods can be improved, and those improvements can help the next generation achieve better outcomes. But what of the larger forces driving the enormous disparities in American wealth? Poor people would be better off if their children had better prospects, but also if they had more money—if the fruits of our society were shared more broadly. “I can take money from you and give it to me, and maybe that is good and maybe it is not,” he said. “I feel like there are a lot of people working on redistribution, and it is hard to figure out the right answer there.” To focus on the question of who gets what is also, of course, politically incendiary.

scottlocklin 7y ago

Chetty is regressing against the wrong thing, which is pretty typical for economists, who mostly seem to be political ideologues armed with least squares fitting and dumb models. He's basically suggesting school busing on a societal level, and we all know how well that turned out.

sfkdjf9j3j 7y ago
What do you mean by, "we all know how that turned out"?
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  Wikipedia has an article on busing in Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_desegregation_busing_cr... It was a boon for politicians on either side. The right could say "look, it isn't working", and the left could say "we tried".
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  How this article got past the editors without mentioning “all deliberate speed...” or anything about Swann is beyond me

hogFeast 7y ago

I laughed at this. Yes, this is what basically every economist suggests because of the way questions are posed (i.e. confusing correlation with causation...if all great salesman wear Rolexes, just buy all your bad salesman Rolexes...it is so simple, how did these simple-minded, non-rigorous managers not realise this!?). Political scientists (actually, this is more policy work...where I am this is done within politics) have been looking at these questions for decades. And, about thirty or forty years ago now, they discovered that historical contingency is very important. You can't just import policies from somewhere else, you can't just move people to where the successful people are...there is other stuff going on. Unfortunately, as economists can't measure these things, they remain wholly (and often wilfully) ignorant of these points. Economists seem - boosted no doubt by laudatory articles about how precocious they were as a child - to have infinite self-confidence. Decades of research on a topic? Irrelevant. "Did you know I have tenure?". "Did you know I use lots of equations in my research? That makes me a scientist you know...rigour!". It is also baffling that someone chose to write an article about someone failing to do any significant research (particularly as so much research already exists on this topic). Perhaps doing useful research matters far less than telling everyone that you are just about to do something important...just around the corner...did you know when I got tenure btw? Very young. I am genius. I was a very smart child. Look at this photo I have of myself holding a piece of chalk when I was a child...just around the corner...

denzil_correa 7y ago

The article does touch on the answer to your question > Chetty’s pitch to the nation is that our problems have technocratic solutions, but at times I sense that he is avoiding an argument. Surely our neighborhoods can be improved, and those improvements can help the next generation achieve better outcomes. But what of the larger forces driving the enormous disparities in American wealth? Poor people would be better off if their children had better prospects, but also if they had more money—if the fruits of our society were shared more broadly. “I can take money from you and give it to me, and maybe that is good and maybe it is not,” he said. “I feel like there are a lot of people working on redistribution, and it is hard to figure out the right answer there.” To focus on the question of who gets what is also, of course, politically incendiary.