How much does the area that we grow up influence our future success? A new study from Harvard economists investigated where children with upward mobility were raised, and Bucks County came in at number 4 on the list.

The Equality of Opportunity Project uses “big data” to develop new answers to this question. The previous phase of the project presented statistics on how upward mobility varies across areas of the U.S. and over time. In the current phase, we focus on families who moved across areas to study how neighborhoods affect upward mobility. We find that every year of exposure to a better environment improves a child’s chances of success, both in a national quasi-experimental study of five million families and in a re-analysis of the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. We use the new methodology and data to present estimates of the causal effect of each county in America on upward mobility.

According to the study, kids in Bucks County will gain an average of 13.2% in earnings.

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