White Flight from Asian Immigration: Evidence from California Public Schools

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the US but we know little about how Asian immigration has affected cities, neighborhoods and schools. This paper studies white flight from Asian arrivals in high-socioeconomic-status Californian school districts from 2000-2016 using initial settlement patterns and national immigrant flows to instrument for entry. We find that, as Asian students arrive, white student enrollment declines in higher-income suburbs. These patterns cannot be fully explained by racial animus, housing prices, or correlations with Black/Hispanic arrivals. Parental fears of academic competition may play a role.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Leah Platt Boustan, Christine Cai, and Tammy Tseng.  Nut unrelated to recent issues surrounding Harvard admissions policies, of course, and also not unrelated to the somewhat uncomfortable role that successful Asian students play in the political discourse of the Left.