EconTalk

Raj Chetty on Economic Mobility

Aug 22, 2022

Raj Chetty, an economist from Harvard and director of Opportunity Insights, discusses groundbreaking research on economic mobility. He reveals that poor individuals connected to diverse social networks have better financial outcomes than those limited to similar economic backgrounds. Chetty explores the implications of community ties on children's long-term prospects and critiques the current state of the American Dream. He addresses the significance of policy changes to combat economic segregation and enhance opportunities for low-income families.

01:19:14

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Episode guests

Raj Chetty

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Episode notes

Intro

3min

Economic Connectedness and Child Mobility

21min

Navigating Economic Mobility

21min

Exploring Community Connectedness and Its Impact on Children's Outcomes

2min

Bridging Economic Segregation

11min

Economic Mobility and the American Dream

13min

Empirical Research in Economics

8min

Economist Raj Chetty of Harvard University talks about his work on economic mobility with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The focus is on Chetty's recent co-authored study in Nature where he finds that poor people in America who are only connected to other poor people do dramatically worse financially than poor people who are connected to a wider array of economic classes. The discussion includes the policy implications of this result as well as a discussion of Chetty's earlier work on the American Dream and the challenge of Americans born in recent decades to do better financially than their parents.

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