IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/blkpoe/v40y2013i2p121-143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hurricane Katrina as an Experiment in Housing Mobility and Neighborhood Effects: Were the Relocated Poor Black Evacuees Better-Off?

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Price

Abstract

Hurricane Katrina induced hundreds of thousands of New Orleans citizens to evacuate and relocate to different neighborhoods. Some of these evacuees moved to neighborhoods with poverty rates lower than the one they left in New Orleans. With survey data on a small sample of black Katrina evacuees who registered for absentee voter ballots, this paper explores whether or not there were improvements in the welfare of black evacuees—neighborhood effects—as a result of moving to neighborhoods with a lower poverty rate. With data from a small sample of relocated Katrina evacuees, we provide matching estimates of the short-run treatment effect of different types of changes in neighborhood poverty on five different measures of individual welfare. Treatment parameter estimates reveal—conditional upon the change in origin to destination neighborhood poverty rate—positive neighborhood effects mostly for black evacuees who did not move from high poverty to low poverty neighborhoods, but could have. Our results suggest that at least in the short-run, antipoverty policies based on housing mobility and changing the poverty characteristics of neighborhoods are not necessarily effective in improving the welfare of poor black households. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Price, 2013. "Hurricane Katrina as an Experiment in Housing Mobility and Neighborhood Effects: Were the Relocated Poor Black Evacuees Better-Off?," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 121-143, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:blkpoe:v:40:y:2013:i:2:p:121-143
    DOI: 10.1007/s12114-012-9151-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12114-012-9151-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12114-012-9151-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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).
    2. Dionissi Aliprantis, 2017. "Assessing the evidence on neighborhood effects from Moving to Opportunity," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 925-954, May.
    3. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn & J. Greg Duncan & Jeffrey R. Kling & Lisa Sanbonmatsu, 2004. "Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results From The Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Working Papers 871, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Gregory Price & William Spriggs & Omari Swinton, 2011. "The Relative Returns to Graduating from a Historically Black College/University: Propensity Score Matching Estimates from the National Survey of Black Americans," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 103-130, June.
    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. Durlauf, Steven N, 1996. "A Theory of Persistent Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 75-93, March.
    7. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    8. George A. Akerlof, 1997. "Social Distance and Social Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1005-1028, September.
    9. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    10. Rhiannon Patterson, 2008. "Neighborhood Effects on High-School Drop-Out Rates and Teenage Childbearing: Tests for Non-Linearities, Race-Specific Effects, Interactions with Family Characteristics, and Endogenous Causation using ," Working Papers 08-12, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    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. Weinhardt, Felix, 2014. "Social housing, neighborhood quality and student performance," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 12-31.
    2. Martin Schlotter & Guido Schwerdt & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Econometric methods for causal evaluation of education policies and practices: a non-technical guide," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 109-137.
    3. Giulio Zanella, 2004. "Discrete Choice with Social Interactions and Endogenous Memberships," Department of Economics University of Siena 442, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    4. Blume,L.E. & Durlauf,S.N., 2005. "Identifying social interactions : a review," Working papers 12, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    5. Stephen Gibbons & Olmo Silva & Felix Weinhardt, 2013. "Everybody Needs Good Neighbours? Evidence from Students’ Outcomes in England," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123, pages 831-874, September.
    6. Stephen Gibbons & Olmo Silva & Felix Weinhardt, 2010. "Do Neighbours Affect Teenage Outcomes? Evidence from Neighbourhood Changes in England," CEE Discussion Papers 0122, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    7. Philip Oreopoulos, 2003. "The Long-Run Consequences of Living in a Poor Neighborhood," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1533-1575.
    8. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    9. Grodner, Andrew & Kniesner, Thomas J. & Bishop, John A., 2011. "Social Interactions in the Labor Market," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 6(4), pages 265-366, September.
    10. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati, 2012. "Indirect Effects of a Policy Altering Criminal Behavior: Evidence from the Italian Prison Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 199-218, April.
    11. Quintana-Domeque, Climent & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2016. "“Relative concerns for consumption at the top”: An intertemporal analysis for the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 172-194.
    12. Federico Cingano & Alfonso Rosolia, 2012. "People I Know: Job Search and Social Networks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 291-332.
    13. Giulio Zanella, 2004. "Social Interactions and Economic Behavior," Department of Economics University of Siena 441, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    14. Cicala, Steve & Fryer, Roland G. & Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2011. "A Roy Model of Social Interactions," MPRA Paper 29150, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Brock, William A. & Durlauf, Steven N., 2007. "Identification of binary choice models with social interactions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 52-75, September.
    16. Wang, Qing & Yu, Xiangrong, 2017. "Family linkages, social interactions, and investment in human capital: A theoretical analysis," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 271-286.
    17. Felix Weinhardt, 2010. "Moving into the Projects: Social Housing Neighbourhoods and School Performance in England," SERC Discussion Papers 0044, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Lena Lindahl, 2011. "A comparison of family and neighborhood effects on grades, test scores, educational attainment and income—evidence from Sweden," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 207-226, June.
    19. Dionissi Aliprantis & Francisca G.-C. Richter, 2020. "Evidence of Neighborhood Effects from Moving to Opportunity: Lates of Neighborhood Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 633-647, October.
    20. Federico Cingano & Alfonso Rosolia, 2006. "People I Know: Workplace Networks and Job Search Outcomes," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 600, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing mobility; Poverty; Race; Treatment effects; I30; I32; J15; J18;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:spr:blkpoe:v:40:y:2013:i:2:p:121-143. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.