Moving to Opportunity
Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing (MTO) was a randomized social experiment sponsored by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the 1990s among 4600 low-income families with children living in high-poverty public housing projects. Families who volunteered to participate in the program were randomly assigned to 3 groups. One group received housing vouchers that for one year could only be used in low-poverty areas and counseling to help them find units in those areas. After one year they could use their vouchers anywhere. One group received vouchers that could be used anywhere but no counseling. A third (control) group did not receive vouchers but remained eligible for any other government assistance to which they otherwise would have been entitled. The demonstration was implemented by public housing authorities in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.[1]
Publications based on the demonstration have been numerous. Interim findings appeared in 2003,[2] and final findings were released in 2011.[3] A special issue of the HUD publication Cityscape in 2012 was largely devoted to the experiment.[4]
The Congressional mandate authorizing the demonstration directed evaluation of its impacts on the housing, earnings, and education of the family members in the treatment groups. Researchers found that voucher recipients lived in lower-crime neighborhoods and generally had better units than the control group families, but the experiment had no impact on earnings or educational attainment.[5] It did, however, have unexpected results in health and happiness. Parents in families who moved to low-poverty areas had lower rates of obesity and depression,[6] and positive impacts on behavior and outlook among young women (but not young men) were also noted.[7]
In 2015, Harvard economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz presented their work on the longer-term results of MTO. This was the first study to find strong evidence that the program caused economic gains, with children who moved from high-poverty areas to low-poverty areas when they were less than 13 years old enjoying mean incomes nearly a third higher than children who did not move. The study also finds that children who moved when they were older than 13 years old fell behind their peers who stayed in high-poverty areas. This is attributed to the disruptive effects of a move later in adolescence and less time for the benefits of living in a low-poverty area to manifest themselves. [8]
References
- ↑ Shroder, Mark D.; Orr, Larry L. (2012). "Moving to Opportunity: Why, How, and What Next?". Cityscape (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) 14 (2).
- ↑ Orr; et al. (September 2003). "Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration : Interim Impacts Evaluation". U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
- ↑ Sanbonmatsu; et al. (October 2011). "Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program - Final Impacts Evaluation". U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
- ↑ "Moving to Opportunity". Cityscape (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) 14 (2). 2012.
- ↑ Sanbonmatsu, Lisa; et al. (April 2006). "Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment" (PDF). Journal of Human Resources (University of Wisconsin Press). ISSN 1548-8004.
- ↑ Ludwig, Jens; et al. (October 2011). "Neighborhoods, Obesity, and Diabetes — A Randomized Social Experiment". The New England Journal of Medicine (Massachusetts Medical Society) 365 (16): 1509–1519. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1103216. ISSN 1533-4406.
- ↑ Kling, Jeffrey R.; et al. (February 2005). "Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence from a Randomised Housing Voucher Experiment" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of Economics (Oxford University Press) 120 (1). doi:10.1162/qjec.2005.120.1.87. ISSN 1531-4650.
- ↑ Wolfers, Justin. "Why the New Research on Mobility Matters: An Economist’s View". TheUpshot nytimes. New York Times. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
Further reading
- Clampet‐Lundquist, Susan; Douglas S. Massey (2008). "Neighborhood Effects on Economic Self‐Sufficiency: A Reconsideration of the Moving to Opportunity Experiment". American Journal of Sociology 114 (1): 107–143. doi:10.1086/588740.
- Ferryman, Kadija S.; et al. (March 2008). "Do Better Neighborhoods for MTO Families Mean Better Schools?" (PDF). Urban Institute. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
- Kling, Jeffrey R.; Jeffrey B. Liebman; Lawrence F. Katz (2007). "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects". Econometrica 75 (1): 83–119. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0262.2007.00733.x. JSTOR 4123109.
- Ludwig, Jens; Jeffrey R. Kling (2006). "Is Crime Contagious?". Journal of Law and Economics 50 (3): 491–518. doi:10.1086/519807.
- Ludwig, Jens; Jeffrey B. Liebman; Jeffrey R. Kling; Greg J. Duncan; Lawrence F. Katz; Ronald C. Kessler; Lisa Sanbonmatsu (2008). "What Can We Learn about Neighborhood Effects from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment?". American Journal of Sociology 114 (1): 144–188. doi:10.1086/588741.
- Sampson, Robert J. (2008). "Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Social Structure". American Journal of Sociology 114 (1): 189–231. doi:10.1086/589843.
- Shroder, Mark (2001). "Moving to Opportunity: An Experiment in Social and Geographic Mobility" (PDF). Cityscape (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) 5 (2). Retrieved 16 August 2013.
- Harcourt, Bernard E.; Ludwig, Jens (2006). "Broken Windows: New Evidence from New York City and a Five-City Social Experiment". University of Chicago Law Review (University of Chicago Press) 73. ISSN 0041-9494.