Train to Opportunity: the Effect of Infrastructure on Intergenerational Mobility
研究19世纪英格兰和威尔士的铁路通达性对职业成就和代际流动的因果效应，发现靠近车站的男性更可能离开农业进入工业或商业领域，并提升向上流动概率。
Abstract Can transport infrastructure expand long-term labour opportunities and weaken the occupational link between parents and children? We estimate the causal effect of railway access on occupational attainment and intergenerational mobility in nineteenth-century England and Wales. Exploiting the as-good-as-random opening of built and planned stations, we address endogeneity in rail proximity. Sons living 5 km closer to a station were more likely to leave farming for industrial and commercial jobs, often entering the top quartile of the occupational distribution. Railway access increased the probability of working in a different occupation than one’s father by 2% and of upward mobility by 6%.