IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v102y2012i1p272-304.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of Housing Assistance on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery

Author

Listed:
  • Brian A. Jacob
  • Jens Ludwig

Abstract

This study estimates the effects of means-tested housing programs on labor supply using data from a randomized housing voucher wait-list lottery in Chicago. Economic theory is ambiguous about the expected sign of any labor supply response. We find that among working-age, able-bodied adults, housing voucher use reduces labor force participation by around 4 percentage points (6 percent) and quarterly earnings by $329 (10 percent), and increases Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program participation by around 2 percentage points (15 percent). We find no evidence that the housing-specific mechanisms hypothesized to promote work, such as neighborhood quality or residential stability, are important empirically. (JEL I38, J22, R23, R38)

Suggested Citation

  • Brian A. Jacob & Jens Ludwig, 2012. "The Effects of Housing Assistance on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 272-304, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:1:p:272-304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.102.1.272
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2012/20081381_data.zip
    File Function: dataset accompanying article
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian A. Jacob, 2004. "Public Housing, Housing Vouchers, and Student Achievement: Evidence from Public Housing Demolitions in Chicago," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 233-258, March.
    2. Reeder, William J., 1985. "The benefits and costs of the section 8 existing housing program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 349-377, April.
    3. Robert A. Moffitt, 2003. "Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff03-1, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Olsen, Edgar O. & Zabel, Jeffrey E., 2015. "US Housing Policy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 887-986, Elsevier.
    2. Fredrik Andersson & John C. Haltiwanger & Mark J. Kutzbach & Giordano Palloni & Henry O. Pollakowski & Daniel H. Weinberg, 2013. "Childhood Housing and Adult Earnings: A Between-Siblings Analysis of Housing Vouchers and Public Housing," Working Papers 13-48, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    4. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    5. Fady Mansour, 2017. "Does Employment During Adolescence Reduce Adult Welfare Participation?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 20(3), pages 199-227.
    6. Sara B. Heller & Brian A. Jacob & Jens Ludwig, 2010. "Family Income, Neighborhood Poverty, and Crime," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 419-459, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Chen, Zhuo & Eastwood, David B. & Yen, Steven T., 2005. "Childhood Malnutrition In China: Change Of Inequality In A Decade," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19205, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2014. "Family, Community and Long-Term Earnings Inequality," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def017, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    9. Battaglia, Marianna & Lebedinski, Lara, 2015. "Equal Access to Education: An Evaluation of the Roma Teaching Assistant Program in Serbia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 62-81.
    10. Marco Francesconi & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2007. "The Socioeconomic Consequences of "In-Work" Benefit Reform for British Lone Mothers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(1).
    11. Peter Haan & Victoria Prowse, 2010. "A structural approach to estimating the effect of taxation on the labour market dynamics of older workers," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(3), pages 99-125, October.
    12. Nicola Pavoni & G. L. Violante, 2007. "Optimal Welfare-to-Work Programs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 283-318.
    13. 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.
    14. Sascha O. Becker & Irena Grosfeld & Pauline Grosjean & Nico Voigtländer & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2020. "Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1430-1463, May.
    15. Marianne P. Bitler & Madeline Zavodny, 2014. "Medicaid: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 20169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Margaret Triyana, 2016. "Do Health Care Providers Respond to Demand-Side Incentives? Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 255-288, November.
    17. Claire Dujardin & Florence Goffette-Nagot, 2009. "Does public housing occupancy increase unemployment?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(6), pages 823-851, November.
    18. Ferguson, Neil T. N. & Michaelsen, Maren M., 2013. "The Legacy of Conflict – Regional Deprivation and School Performance in Northern Ireland," Ruhr Economic Papers 419, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    19. Hanel, Barbara & Kalb, Guyonne & Scott, Anthony, 2014. "Nurses’ labour supply elasticities: The importance of accounting for extensive margins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 94-112.
    20. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dahmann, Sarah C. & Salamanca, Nicolás & Zhu, Anna, 2022. "Intergenerational disadvantage: Learning about equal opportunity from social assistance receipt," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. The Effects of Housing Assistance and Labour Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery (AER 2012) in ReplicationWiki

    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:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:1:p:272-304. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.