"Evaluating Contradictory Experimental and Nonexperimental Estimates of Neighborhood Effects on Economic Outcomes for Adults"

Distinguished Professor Greg Duncan is co-author of an article in Housing Policy Debate evaluating neighborhood effects on economic outcomes for adults.
 
The title of the article is “Evaluating Contradictory Experimental and Nonexperimental Estimates of Neighborhood Effects on Economic Outcomes for Adults.”
 
Co-authors are Professor David James Harding (UCB, first author), Research Manager Lisa Sanbonmatsu (Center for Education Policy Research), Associate Research Scientist Lisa Genetian (New York University), Professor Lawrence F. Katz (Harvard), Professor Ronald C. Kessler (UCB), Research Fellow Jeffrey R. Kling (National Bureau of Economic Research), Public Health Analyst Matthew Sciandra (RT International), Professor Jens Ludwig (University of Chicago).

​Duncan researches the roles that families, peers, neighborhoods and public policy play in affecting the life chances of children and adolescents. Currently he is part of a team conducting a random-assignment trial assessing impacts of income supplements on the cognitive development of infants born to poor mothers in four diverse U.S. communities. Duncan is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and the Kenneth Boulding Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 

Greg Duncan

Duncan has served as president of the Population Association of America (2008) and the Society for Research in Child Development (2009-2011). Among his many honors are the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize and the Society for Research in Child Development Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development.

Abstract
 
Although nonexperimental studies find robust neighborhood effects on adults, such findings have been challenged by results from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) residential mobility experiment. Using a within-study comparison design, this article compares experimental and nonexperimental estimates from MTO and a parallel analysis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Striking similarities were found between nonexperimental estimates based on MTO and PSID. No clear evidence was found that different estimates are related to duration of adult exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods, nonlinear effects of neighborhood conditions, magnitude of the change in neighborhood context, frequency of moves, treatment effect heterogeneity, or measurement, although the uncertainty bands around our estimates were sometimes large. Another possibility is that MTO-induced moves might have been unusually disruptive, but results are inconsistent for that hypothesis. Taken together, the findings suggest that selection bias might account for evidence of neighborhood effects on adult economic outcomes in nonexperimental studies.
 
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