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Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Randomized Housing Lottery in Urban India

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  • Sharon Barnhardt
  • Erica Field
  • Rohini Pande

Abstract

A housing lottery in an Indian city provided winning slum dwellers the opportunity to move into improved housing on the city's periphery. Fourteen years later, winners report improved housing but no change in tenure security, family income, or human capital. Winners also report increased isolation from family and caste networks and reduced informal insurance. We observe significant program exit: 34 percent of winners never took up subsidized housing and 32 percent eventually exited. Our results suggest negligible long-run economic value of this expensive public program and point to the importance of considering social networks in housing programs for the poor.

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  • Sharon Barnhardt & Erica Field & Rohini Pande, 2017. "Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Randomized Housing Lottery in Urban India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:1-32
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20150397
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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