City of My Dreams: Social Mobility and Growth in Stockholm since the Industrial Revolution

Are individuals’ economic, health, and social outcomes determined by where in a city they grow up? Are such (dis)advantages of place transmitted across generations? Can policy makers alter urban environments to produce better outcomes for disadvantaged children? This project develops a unique individual-level database of all inhabitants in Stockholm 1878-1926 linked to the building where they live.

We use this data to analyze how economic opportunity, inequality, and segregation evolved as Stockholm was transformed into a modern metropolis around the turn of the last century. In particular, we study the returns to migration from moving to Stockholm and how different neighborhoods within the city shaped children’s economic and social outcomes. To identify causal effects, we exploit several natural experiments that induce both in-migration to Stockholm and within-city migration of families across neighborhoods. Moreover, we study how a range of policy interventions reshaped Stockholm and how changes in education, health infrastructure, and transportation affected individuals and the neighborhoods where they live.

Our uniquely rich data allows us to study how urban environments shape the outcomes of several generations, as well as the historical origins of spatial inequality and segregation in Stockholm today.