Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice
通过随机实验，研究为低收入家庭提供信息、资金和定制化搜索帮助，如何显著提高他们迁往高机会社区的比例，揭示住房搜索障碍是居住隔离的关键原因。
Low-income families often live in low-upward-mobility neighborhoods. We study why by using a randomized trial with housing voucher recipients that provided information, financial support, and customized search assistance to move to high-opportunity neighborhoods. The treatment increased the fraction moving to high-upward-mobility areas from 15 to 53 percent. A second trial reveals this treatment effect is driven primarily by customized search assistance. Qualitative interviews show that the intervention relaxed bandwidth constraints and addressed family-specific needs. Our findings imply many low-income families do not have strong preferences to stay in low-opportunity areas and that barriers in housing search significantly increase residential segregation by income.