Moving to Opportunity
Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing (MTO) was a randomized
Study Design
Families who volunteered to participate in the program were randomly assigned to 3 groups. One group received housing vouchers that could be used only in low-poverty areas for the first year as well as counseling to help them find units there. After a 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. A vast majority of the participating families were headed by African-American or Hispanic single mothers.[1] The demonstration was implemented by public housing authorities in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.[2]
Evaluations and Findings
Publications based on the demonstration have been numerous. Interim findings appeared in 2003,[3] and final findings were released in 2011.[4] A special issue of the HUD publication Cityscape in 2012 was largely devoted to the experiment.[5]
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 educational attainment.[6] Effects on employment were diverse among cites. [4] p. 151 Compared with the control group, employment was smaller among voucher recipient during first 2 years. p. 149 The drop could be an effect of disruptions of social networks resulting in increased difficulty in finding work and arrange informal and affordable child care. p. 140 The initial negative effects attenuated over time, but there were no statistically significant gains in longer-term employment rates and earnings. p 257 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,[7] and positive impacts on behavior and outlook among young women (but not young men) were also noted.[8]
In 2010,
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.[10]
Criticism
A critique in the
References
- ^ "A Summary Overview of Moving to Opportunity: A Random Assignment Housing Mobility Study in Five U.S. Cities" (PDF). www.mtoresearch.org. The National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
- ^ Shroder, Mark D.; Orr, Larry L. (2012). "Moving to Opportunity: Why, How, and What Next?". Cityscape. 14 (2). U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
- ^ Orr; et al. (September 2003). "Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration : Interim Impacts Evaluation". U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
- ^ a b 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 August 16, 2013.
- ^ "Moving to Opportunity". Cityscape. 14 (2). U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 2012.
- ISSN 1548-8004.
- PMID 22010917.
- ISSN 1531-4650.
- ISBN 978-0195392845.
- ^ Wolfers, Justin (May 4, 2015). "Why the New Research on Mobility Matters: An Economist's View". TheUpshot. The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
- S2CID 145375178.
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. S2CID 142785595.
- de Souza Briggs, Xavier; Popkin, Susan J.; Goering, John (2010). Moving to Opportunity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195392845.
- Ferryman, Kadija S.; et al. (March 2008). "Do Better Neighborhoods for MTO Families Mean Better Schools?" (PDF). Urban Institute. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
- Kling, Jeffrey R.; Jeffrey B. Liebman; Lawrence F. Katz (2007). "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects" (PDF). Econometrica. 75 (1): 83–119. JSTOR 4123109.
- Ludwig, Jens; Jeffrey R. Kling (2006). "Is Crime Contagious?". Journal of Law and Economics. 50 (3): 491–518. S2CID 7591525.
- 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?" (PDF). American Journal of Sociology. 114 (1): 144–188. S2CID 6039708.
- Sampson, Robert J. (2008). "Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Social Structure" (PDF). American Journal of Sociology. 114 (1): 189–231. PMID 25360053.
- Shroder, Mark (2001). "Moving to Opportunity: An Experiment in Social and Geographic Mobility" (PDF). Cityscape. 5 (2). U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved August 16, 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. 73. SSRN 743284.