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Nonlinear and Threshold Aspects of Neighborhood Effects

Nachbarschaftseffekte: Nichtlineare Effekte und Schwellenwerte

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Abstract

An important frontier in context effects research is investigating nonlinear and threshold effects. There is ample theoretical foundation for suggesting that several endogenous social processes generate nonlinear relationships between measures of neighborhood social composition and a variety of outcomes for individual residents. There is also a growing international body of statistical literature testifying to the existence of nonlinear and threshold effects, though the findings are often inconsistent, especially in the European-based scholarship. Further empirical research on this topic is crucial because identifying the precise nature of nonlinear and threshold effects provides both a necessary social efficiency justification and practical programmatic guidance for policies designed to encourage more social diversity within neighborhoods.

Zusammenfassung

Ein wichtiges Arbeitsgebiet in der Erforschung von Kontexteffekten ist es, nichtlineare Effekte und Schwellenwerte zu untersuchen. Es gibt umfangreiche theoretische Begründungen dafür, dass verschiedene endogene soziale Prozesse nichtlineare Beziehungen zwischen der Sozialstruktur einer Nachbarschaft und einer Vielzahl von Ergebnissen für die Bewohner bewirken. Zudem gibt es eine wachsende Zahl internationaler Studien, die beide Effekte belegen, obgleich die Befunde widersprüchlich sind, insbesondere der europäischen Forschung. Daher ist die weitere empirische Erforschung dieses Sachverhaltes entscheidend. Denn wenn wir in der Lage sind, die nichtlinearen Effekte und Schwellenwerte präziser zu bestimmen, erhalten wir eine notwendige soziale Rechtfertigung sowie praktische Hilfen für politische Maßnahmen, die dazu dienen, die soziale Mischung in Nachbarschaften zu erhöhen.

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Notes

  1. For more on the relationship between neighborhood effects scholarship and “social mix” strategies pursued by many governments in Europe, Australia and the U.S., see Galster (2013).

  2. The former can be termed a “lower threshold” and the latter an “upper threshold.”

  3. Those shown do not exhaust the possibilities, of course.

  4. More precisely, whether an epidemic occurs will be jointly determined by: (1) the length of period during which those infected can transmit the infection to others; (2) the number of non-infected people each infected person exposes; (3) the probability that an exposure will lead to infection; (4) the time it takes between exposure and becoming ill and infectious to others; and (5) whether, once healthy again, one may be infected another time.

  5. The only exceptions are Crane (1991) and Van der Klaauw and van Ours (2003), whose studies are discussed below.

  6. Duncan et al. (1997) and Santiago et al. (forthcoming) did not explicitly test for a threshold at a below-average percentage of affluent, however.

  7. Turley (2003) analyzes behavioral and psychological test scores for youth as measured in a special supplement of the PSID. She relates these scores to the median family income of the census tract, so one cannot be certain whether the relationship is being generated by share of affluent or share of poor. She tests for non-linearities by employing a quadratic version of neighborhood income variable and finds that its coefficient is statistically significant and negative for the self-esteem outcome, implying that improving the economic environment of youth has a much greater psychological impact for those initially in disadvantaged neighborhood circumstances. Unfortunately, quadratic specifications are not precise in identifying thresholds.

  8. They define low-income as those earning less than the 30th percentile of the male income distribution in a given year.

  9. They define disadvantaged (advantaged) individuals as those earning less (greater) than the 30th percentile of the male income distribution in a given year.

  10. I make this argument more precisely in Galster and Zobel (1998) and Galster (2002, 2005, 2007a, b).

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  1. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University, 656 West Kirby Street, Detroit, MI 48202, USA

    George Galster

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Galster, G. Nonlinear and Threshold Aspects of Neighborhood Effects. Köln Z Soziol 66 (Suppl 1), 117–133 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-014-0268-3

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