Many US cities have made large investments in light rail transit in order to improve commuting networks. I analyse the labour market effects of light rail in four US metros. I propose a new instrumental variable to overcome endogeneity in transit station location, enabling causal identification of neighbourhood effects. Light rail stations are found to drastically improve employment outcomes in the surrounding neighbourhood. To incorporate endogenous sorting by workers, I estimate a structural neighbourhood choice model. Light rail systems tend to raise rents in accessible locations, displacing lower skilled workers to isolated neighbourhoods, which reduces aggregate metropolitan employment in equilibrium.

为了改善通勤网络，美国许多城市已经在轻轨交通上进行了大量投资。我分析了美国四个大都市中轻轨对劳动力市场的影响。我提出了一个新的工具变量，以克服公交车站位置中的内生性，从而能够确定因果关系。发现轻轨站可以极大地改善周围社区的就业成果。为了合并工人进行的内生分类，我估计了一种结构性邻里选择模型。轻轨系统往往会增加可及地点的租金，将低技术工人转移到偏僻的社区，这会减少均衡状态下大都市区的总就业。