Segregation, Spillovers, and the Locus of Racial Change

Donald Davis, Matthew Easton and Stephan Thies

No 34246, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We use a discrete choice framework to provide the first nesting of Thomas C. Schelling’s canonical models of racial segregation amenable to empirical examination. Using U.S. Census data from 1970–2000, we demonstrate a central role for spatial racial spillovers in shaping racial clustering, patterns of racial shares and housing prices at the boundary of racial clusters, and the locus of racial change. Our results on the locus of racial change conflict strongly with prominent prior results on racial tipping. Our theory provides a foundation for spatially stratified regressions. The strongest spatial effects in the prior work are not tipping, but the distinct biased White suburbanization. Tipping effects in urban areas remote from Minority clusters are small or insignificant. In urban areas proximate to Minority clusters they average less than half those reported in prior pooled results. Policies promoting racial integration must thus attend to the heterogeneous fragility of neighborhoods.

JEL-codes: J15 R1 R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09
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