Information and inner city educational attainment

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are analyzed to examine whether adolescents living in low-income urban areas have less accurate information about labor market institutions than teens in more affluent communities, and whether information influences educational attainment. All adolescents seem to implicitly underestimate the educational requirements of their occupational goals, and teens (particularly males) in high-poverty urban areas have less accurate information than those in other neighborhoods. Information varies across neighborhoods in part because of the effects of family socioeconomic status on information, including the education and employment experiences of parents. The labor market information measures available with the NLSY are related to schooling persistence, even after controlling for AFQT scores and family background. [JEL I20, J24, D83]  1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.