Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice
Peter Bergman, Raj Chetty, Stefanie DeLuca, Nathaniel Hendren, Lawrence F. Katz, Christopher Palmer
American Economic Review · 2024 · Volume 114 · Issue 5
Abstract
Low-income families often live in low-upward-mobility neighborhoods. We study why by using a randomized trial with housing voucher recipients that provided information, financial support, and customized search assistance to move to high-opportunity neighborhoods. The treatment increased the fraction moving to high-upward-mobility areas from 15 to 53 percent. A second trial reveals this treatment effect is driven primarily by customized search assistance. Qualitative interviews show that the intervention relaxed bandwidth constraints and addressed family-specific needs. Our findings imply many low-income families do not have strong preferences to stay in low-opportunity areas and that barriers in housing search significantly increase residential segregation by income.
Keywords
Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief, Unawareness, Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth, Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Housing Demand, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration, Regional Labor Markets, Population, Neighborhood Characteristics, Housing Supply and Markets, Production Analysis and Firm Location: Government Policy
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