Do cognitive skills moderate the influence of neighborhood disadvantage on subsequent educational attainment?

This paper examines how neighborhood quality affects young adults’ educational outcomes, and whether neighborhood effects are moderated by cognitive test scores and other proxies for investments during childhood. The empirical results imply that high cognitive test scores help young adults overcome the effects of having lived in a disadvantaged neighborhood during adolescence with respect to attainment of a high school diploma and enrollment in a two- or four-year college. The results are robust to using alternative proxies for investments in children, such as mother's highest grade completed and measures of non-cognitive skills.