IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cepsud/67.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Early Impacts of Moving to Opportunity in Boston

Author

Listed:
  • Lawrence F. Katz

    (Harvard University and NBER)

  • Jeffrey R. Kling

    (Princeton University and NBER)

  • Jeffrey B. Liebman

    (Harvard University and NBER)

Abstract

This study focuses on 540 households originally living in public housing in high-poverty areas of Boston who participated in HUD's Moving To Opportunity (MTO) demonstration. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Experimental - offered mobility counseling and a Section 8 subsidy valid in a 1990 Census tract with a poverty rate of less than 10 percent; Section 8 Comparison - offered a geographically unrestricted Section 8 subsidy; or Control - offered no new assistance, but continued eligibility for public housing. We find that 48 percent of the Experimental group and 62 percent of the Section 8 Comparison group moved through the MTO program. Both groups moved to areas that differ on many dimensions from their origin neighborhoods, having lower poverty rates, higher education levels, and greater employment rates. In a survey covering participants on average two years after program entry, we find that both Experimental and Section 8 Comparison group households experienced increased safety, fewer behavior problems among boys, and improved health among household heads relative to the Control group. The Experimental group also had fewer injuries and criminal victimizations among children. Although employment rates for all participants have increased substantially since 1994, there were no significant impacts of either MTO treatment on the employment or earnings of household heads in Massachusetts administrative earnings data through December 1998. The results reported in this study cover only the early impacts of MTO at one site. The long term impacts of changes in residential location facilitated by MTO may not be apparent for some time. The large early improvements observed for the MTO Experimental group in term of mother's mental health and fewer child problem behaviors may be important intermediating factors in long run child socioeconomic outcomes. But the short-term impacts of MTO are also of independent importance. Many of the hopes of MTO Experimental and Section 8 Comparison families concerning increased safety, reduced stress, and improved environments for their children already appear to have been realized through moves made possible by the demonstration.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2000. "The Early Impacts of Moving to Opportunity in Boston," Working Papers 132, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:67
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/67kling.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manning, Willard G, et al, 1987. "Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 251-277, June.
    2. Daniel Aaronson, 1998. "Using Sibling Data to Estimate the Impact of Neighborhoods on Children's Educational Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(4), pages 915-946.
    3. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    4. Maria Hanratty & Sara McLanahan & Becky Pettit, 1998. "The Impact Of The Los Angeles Moving Opportunity Program On Residential Mobility, Neighborhood Characteristics, And Early Child And Parent Outcomes," Working Papers 990, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    5. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    6. repec:pri:crcwel:wp98-18-hanratty is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Figlio David & Ludwig Jens, 2012. "Sex, Drugs, and Catholic Schools: Private Schooling and Non-Market Adolescent Behaviors," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 13(4), pages 385-415, December.
    2. Currie, Janet & Yelowitz, Aaron, 2000. "Are public housing projects good for kids?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 99-124, January.
    3. Green, Beth L. & Ayoub, Catherine & Bartlett, Jessica Dym & Furrer, Carrie & Von Ende, Adam & Chazan-Cohen, Rachel & Klevens, Joanne & Nygren, Peggy, 2015. "It's not as simple as it sounds: Problems and solutions in accessing and using administrative child welfare data for evaluating the impact of early childhood interventions," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 40-49.
    4. Philip J. Cook, 2008. "Assessing Urban Crime And Its Control: An Overview," NBER Working Papers 13781, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2000. "The Early Impacts of Moving to Opportunity in Boston," Working Papers 276, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Health and Wellbeing..
    2. repec:pri:cepsud:67kling is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:pri:cheawb:kling_early_impacts is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Lawrence Katz & B. Jeffrey Liebman, 2000. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," Working Papers 820, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    5. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    6. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, "undated". "Clean Evidence on Peer Pressure," IEW - Working Papers 144, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Weinhardt, Felix, 2014. "Social housing, neighborhood quality and student performance," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 12-31.
    8. Lisa Sanbonmatsu & Jeffrey R. Kling & Greg J. Duncan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2006. "Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    9. Johnson Rucker C., 2012. "Health Dynamics and the Evolution of Health Inequality over the Life Course: The Importance of Neighborhood and Family Background," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-69, January.
    10. Patrick Bayer & Stephen L. Ross & Giorgio Topa, 2008. "Place of Work and Place of Residence: Informal Hiring Networks and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1150-1196, December.
    11. Anne R. Pebley & Narayan Sastry, 2003. "Neighborhoods, Poverty and Children's Well-being: A Review," Working Papers 03-04, RAND Corporation.
    12. Anne R. Pebley & Narayan Sastry, 2003. "Neighborhoods, Poverty and Children’s Well-being A Review," Working Papers DRU-3001-NICHD, RAND Corporation.
    13. Kling, Jeffrey & Liebman, Jeffrey, 2004. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects on Youth," Working Paper Series rwp04-034, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Bruce A. Weinberg & Patricia B. Reagan & Jeffrey J. Yankow, 2004. "Do Neighborhoods Affect Hours Worked? Evidence from Longitudinal Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 891-924, October.
    15. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    16. Qingyan Shang, 2014. "Endogenous neighborhood effects on welfare participation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 639-667, September.
    17. Lea Eilers & Alfredo R. Paloyo & Peggy Bechara, 2022. "The effect of peer employment and neighborhood characteristics on individual employment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1885-1908, April.
    18. McEwan, Patrick J., 2003. "Peer effects on student achievement: evidence from Chile," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 131-141, April.
    19. Bruce A. Weinberg, 2007. "Social Interactions with Endogenous Associations," NBER Working Papers 13038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Wietzke, Frank-Borge, 2014. "Pathways from jobs to social cohesion," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6804, The World Bank.
    21. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    22. Card, David & Rothstein, Jesse, 2007. "Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2158-2184, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Boston; Massachussetts; United States;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:67. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.