This study intends to determine some of the avenues through which parent income affects child income and if the public education system has the potential to increase income mobility and equalize economic opportunity. I find that the income elasticity between generations falls somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6, depending on other controls, and that this elasticity tends to be higher for the lower end of the future income distribution. However, certain education measures studied, such as the fraction of newly hired teachers and teacher salaries, could alleviate some of these effects.

This paper investigates the relationship between immigrant inflows and native outflows in US metropolitan areas, using data from the Current Population Survey during the period from 2005-2014. Simple linear regression suggests a significant positive effect of immigrant population growth on native population growth at the metropolitan level. Native and immigrant location decisions are likely driven by similar socio-economic variables. To correct for this endogeneity, lagged immigrant share and predicted immigrant inflows are used as instruments for the relative growth rate of immigrants. These instrumental variables models do not find evidence that immigrants have prompted native outflows. Even after stratifying by education, there is little evidence that immigrant inflows contribute to a decline in the native population.