Understanding trends and drivers of urban poverty in American cities

Francesco Andreoli (), Arnaud Mertens (), Mauro Mussini () and Vincenzo Prete ()
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Francesco Andreoli: University of Verona
Arnaud Mertens: Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), MSH
Mauro Mussini: University of Milan-Bicocca
Vincenzo Prete: University of Verona

Empirical Economics, 2022, vol. 63, issue 3, No 16, 1663-1705

Abstract: Abstract Urban poverty arises from the uneven distribution of poor populations across neighborhoods of a city. We study the trend and drivers of urban poverty across American cities over the last 40 years. To do so, we resort to a family of urban poverty indices that account for features of incidence, distribution, and segregation of poverty across census tracts. Compared to the universally-adopted concentrated poverty index, these measures have a solid normative background. We use tract-level data to assess the extent to which demographics, housing, education, employment, and income distribution affect levels and changes in urban poverty. A decomposition study allows to single out the effect of changes in the distribution of these variables across cities from changes in their correlation with urban poverty. We find that demographics and income distribution have a substantial role in explaining urban poverty patterns, whereas the same effects remarkably differ when using the concentrated poverty indices.

Keywords: Concentrated poverty; Gini index; Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition; Census; American Community Survey; Spatial inequality; C34; D31; H24; P25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-021-02174-5

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