Kamala Harris Dreams of an ‘Opportunity Economy.’ This Is How to Make It a Reality. - The New York Times

At the start of her debate with Donald Trump, Kamala Harris spoke about building an "opportunity economy." What does that mean, and how can we create one?

I've been studying the science of economic opportunity for many years with my Harvard-based group, Opportunity Insights . We've analyzed all sorts of data, from anonymized tax returns to school-district databases and the social networks of hundreds of millions of Americans.

An opportunity economy prioritizes equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. In such an economy, we all have the chance to achieve our potential, even if some people ultimately end up earning more than others. Right now, opportunity is not equally distributed in America: People's chances of achieving success vary widely depending upon their parents' income, racial background and ZIP code.

While views about income redistribution using taxes are divided, equality of opportunity is a principle that appeals to Americans across the political spectrum. Most people agree that it's unfair if your fate is determined by the family you happen to be born into or where you grow up.

But equality of opportunity is not just about fairness; it's also about increasing economic growth and innovation. By giving everyone a chance to succeed, we better harness our talents to fill critical work force shortages, make new discoveries and start new businesses.

This is why an opportunity economy has real political promise as a unifying goal for Americans.

Ms. Harris has begun to sketch out a federal program for this kind of economy. To help fill out her plan, and for voters curious to hear more about what it might mean, this is what we've learned about how to make this vision a reality for many Americans.

A successful opportunity economy is built around three core themes. First, start in childhood. Research has shown that the roots of opportunity start at birth. Children who grow up in thriving environments — with good health and nutrition, high-quality education and housing, stable families and positive social influences — are much better positioned to achieve success later in life.

Every extra year of exposure to a better environment during childhood improves outcomes later in life. By the time people start working, it is much harder to change trajectories. It's like starting to exercise to improve your health after you retire — it can still help, but it's more effective to start earlier.

Second, focus on communities, not individuals, as the unit of change. Children's chances of rising out of poverty vary dramatically across places. In some parts of America — such as Boston and Brownsville, Tex. — opportunity is plentiful, with many children from low-income families rising to the middle class and beyond when they grow up. In others, including Atlanta and Philadelphia, children from low-income families tend to remain in poverty throughout their lives.

Economic mobility varies substantially even within cities . When children move to better neighborhoods, especially earlier in childhood, their outcomes improve significantly, even if their own parents' financial status remains unchanged. Likewise, when conditions in a community improve — for example, if the fraction of parents working in an area increases — children do better, even if nothing changes in their own families.

This evidence calls for a place-based approach to improving economic opportunity that targets specific areas and subgroups that lack opportunity rather than attempting to support families uniformly across communities.

The third key to an opportunity economy is to build social capital. The strongest predictor of differences in economic mobility across neighborhoods is the degree to which low- and high-income people are connected to one another. In communities where low-income people have many high-income friends, people born into poverty are much more likely to rise up. Connections matter for job referrals, but they're perhaps more important for guidance in navigating complex decisions like where to live , go to college or start a business. Moreover, people are inspired to follow the paths of those they are connected to, particularly those with similar backgrounds. For example, when girls grow up around more female scientists in their community, they are more likely to become scientists themselves. When they grow up around more male scientists, there is no impact.

Most policies to create economic opportunity focus on providing people with financial incentives and resources, like tax credits for families or small businesses. At last week's debate, Ms. Harris mentioned a couple of these types of proposals. But putting social capital at the fore alongside financial supports — a system of "connected capitalism" that brings together those who don't have opportunities and those who do — may be even more vital for creating opportunity.

There are many successful policies that exemplify these themes and have garnered bipartisan support. Housing voucher policies that provide social support for families to move to opportunity-rich neighborhoods reduce segregation and improve children's outcomes substantially. Investments to turn high-poverty public housing projects into thriving mixed-income communities change children's lives. Changes in the K-12 school system, ranging from reducing class sizes to improving the quality of our teaching work force and intensive advising , show promise. Providing more access to colleges and programs that have a proven record of creating economic mobility (rather than focusing on just expanding access to college in general) can change trajectories. Sectoral job training programs that target disadvantaged communities and combine technical skills with connections to employers provide pathways to opportunity for those already in the work force.

Many of these investments would pay for themselves . Future tax revenues from increases in people's incomes would more than offset the costs to taxpayers.

At the federal level, perhaps more significant than any specific policy reform is making opportunity a central, unifying focus. Federal policy is typically designed and implemented in silos, with different agencies responsible for programs ranging from affordable housing to employment and cash assistance. The charge to create opportunity rests implicitly with everyone and explicitly with no one.

To realize the vision of an opportunity economy, our next president should issue an executive order that calls for an explicit focus on creating opportunity, similar to previous executive orders that have called for a focus on core issues of national importance. Such an order would charge federal agencies with identifying where opportunity is lacking using big data, scoring policies systematically in terms of their impact on opportunity and coordinating with local governments and businesses to bring the best policies to communities where opportunity is lacking.

A local example of making opportunity an explicit focus is the city of Charlotte, N.C., which in a 2014 research report ranked 50th of the 50 largest cities in America in kids' chances of rising out of poverty. When that data came out, the city responded by bringing together business leaders, nonprofits and government to form a commission tasked with creating opportunity. It produced numerous investments in childhood programs and changes in local policies and hiring practices, which have in part contributed to a turnaround. Charlotte is now among the cities in which economic mobility is rising most quickly in America — demonstrating that opportunity can change.

Imagine a similar focus on creating an opportunity economy, but nationally. It could transform the lives of so many Americans and serve as a unifying platform that will propel growth and progress for us all.

Raj Chetty ( ) is an economics professor at Harvard and the director of Opportunity Insights.