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

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  • Barnhardt, Sharon
  • Field, Erica
  • Pande, Rohini

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, relative to lottery losers, winners report improved housing farther from the city center, but no change in family income or human capital. Winners also report increased isolation from family and caste networks and lower access to informal insurance. We observe significant program exit: 34% of winners never moved into the subsidized housing and 32% eventually exited. Our results point to the importance of considering social networks when designing housing programs for the poor.

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  • Barnhardt, Sharon & Field, Erica & Pande, Rohini, 2015. "Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Randomized Housing Lottery in Urban India," CEPR Discussion Papers 10746, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10746
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    Cited by:

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    2. Kondo, Ayako & Shoji, Masahiro, 2016. "Peer Effects in Employment Status: Evidence from Housing Lotteries for Forced Evacuees in Fukushima," IZA Discussion Papers 9708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    4. Eric Chyn & Lawrence F. Katz, 2021. "Neighborhoods Matter: Assessing the Evidence for Place Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 197-222, Fall.
    5. Anandi Mani & Emma Riley, 2019. "Social networks, role models, peer effects, and aspirations," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-120, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Alison Andrew & Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg & Jere Behrman & Monimalika Day & Pamela Jervis & Costas Meghir & Angus Phimister, 2020. "Mothers’ Social Networks and Socioeconomic Gradients of Isolation," NBER Working Papers 28049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kondo, Ayako & Shoji, Masahiro, 2019. "Peer effects in employment status: Evidence from housing lotteries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    8. Kumar, Tanu, 2021. "The housing quality, income, and human capital effects of subsidized homes in urban India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Roxana Manea; Patrizio Piraino; Martina Viarengo, 2021. "Crime, Inequality and Subsidized Housing:Evidence from South Africa," CIES Research Paper series 66-2021, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    11. Mattea Stein, 2021. "Know-how and Know-who: Effects of a Randomized Training on Network Changes Among Small Urban Entrepreneurs," CSEF Working Papers 622, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    12. Picarelli, Nathalie, 2019. "There Is No Free House," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 35-52.
    13. Choda, Amreen & Schoofs, Annekathrin & Verrinder, Noel, 2020. "Improving housing conditions: Labelled loans in Kenya and Uganda," Ruhr Economic Papers 878, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    14. Squarize Chagas, André Luis & Malvezzi Rocha, Guilherme, 2019. "Housing Program and Social Conditions Impact: Evidences from “Minha Casa Minha Vida” Program Lotteries in Brazil," TD NEREUS 11-2019, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    15. Punarjit Roychowdhury, 2018. "Visible consumption, relative deprivation, and health: evidence from a developing country," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(3), pages 1366-1380.
    16. Clemens Sedmak, 2019. "Evidence-based dialogue: the relationship between religion and poverty through the lens of randomized controlled trials," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-7, December.
    17. Urmi Sengupta & Brendan Murtagh & Camila D’Ottaviano & Suzana Pasternak, 2018. "Between enabling and provider approach: Key shifts in the national housing policy in India and Brazil," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(5), pages 856-876, August.
    18. Srinivasan, Suchita & Carattini, Stefano, 2020. "Adding fuel to fire? Social spillovers in the adoption of LPG in India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    19. Mariaflavia Harari & Maisy Wong, 2018. "Slum Upgrading and Long-run Urban Development: Evidence from Indonesia," 2018 Meeting Papers 367, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    and growth; and transportation economics; economic development; innovation; mathematical and quantitative methods; public economics; real estate; regional; rural; technological change; urban;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

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