Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence From a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment*
利用随机住房券实验数据，研究发现搬离高贫困区能减少女性青少年暴力与财产犯罪，但对男性青少年短期减少暴力犯罪却增加问题行为与财产犯罪，揭示性别差异。
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration assigned housing vouchers via random lottery to public housing residents in five cities. We use the exogenous variation in residential locations generated by MTO to estimate neighborhood effects on youth crime and delinquency. The offer to relocate to lower-poverty areas reduces arrests among female youth for violent and property crimes, relative to a control group. For males the offer to relocate reduces arrests for violent crime, at least in the short run, but increases problem behaviors and property crime arrests. The gender difference in treatment effects seems to reflect differences in how male and female youths from disadvantaged backgrounds adapt and respond to similar new neighborhood environments.