experimental analysis of neighborhood effects on youth（实验分析的社区对青少年的影响）.pdfVIP

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS Jeffrey R. Kling, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and Lawrence F. Katz1 June 2006 Econometrica, forthcoming ABSTRACT Families, primarily female-headed minority households with children, living in high- poverty public housing projects in five U.S. cities were offered housing vouchers by lottery in the Moving to Opportunity program. Four to seven years after random assignment, families offered vouchers lived in safer neighborhoods that had lower poverty rates than those of the control group not offered vouchers. We find no significant overall effects of this intervention on adult economic self-sufficiency or physical health. Mental health benefits of the voucher offers for adults and for female youth were substantial. Beneficial effects for female youth on education, risky behavior, and physical health were offset by adverse effects for male youth. For outcomes exhibiting significant treatment effects, we find, using variation in treatment intensity across voucher types and cities, that the relationship between neighborhood poverty rate and outcomes is approximately linear. JEL classifications: H43, I18, I38, J38. Keywords: social experiment; housing vouchers, neighborhoods, mental health, urban poverty 1 This paper integrates material previously circulated in Kling and Liebman (2004), Kling et al. (2004), and Liebman et al. (2004). Support for this research was provided by grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) and the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-HD40404 and R01-HD40444), the National Science Foundation (9876337 and 0091854), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundat