Working Paper: NBER ID: w11909
Authors: Lisa Sanbonmatsu; Jeffrey R. Kling; Greg J. Duncan; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Abstract: Families originally living in public housing were assigned housing vouchers by lottery, encouraging moves to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Although we had hypothesized that reading and math test scores would be higher among children in families offered vouchers (with larger effects among younger children), the results show no significant effects on test scores for any age group among over 5000 children ages 6 to 20 in 2002 who were assessed four to seven years after randomization. Program impacts on school environments were considerably smaller than impacts on neighborhoods, suggesting that achievement-related benefits from improved neighborhood environments are alone small.
Keywords: neighborhoods; academic achievement; housing vouchers; randomized experiment
JEL Codes: I28; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Treatment group families moving to less affluent neighborhoods (R23) | Dilution of initial benefits of their placements (I24) |
| No significant effects on test scores for any age group (I21) | Educational outcomes not improved by neighborhood change (I24) |
| Moving to lower poverty neighborhoods (I32) | Improved educational outcomes among children (I21) |
| Differences in outcomes due to randomized assignment (C90) | Effects of treatment (housing vouchers) on educational outcomes (I24) |