Location Matters: Social Networks, Neighborhood Effects and Economic Development in Urban India

该项目由三项研究组成，研究社区之间和社区内部的社会和空间距离如何影响城市贫困人口的经济和社会流动性，重点关注三个具体渠道：在较富裕的社区获得改善的住房，社区内的同伴外部性，以及通过小额信贷机构获得银行服务。这些研究收集和分析了来自阿赫梅达巴德的家庭调查数据。艾哈迈达巴德是印度第六大人口城市，位于印度工业化程度最高、发展最快的古吉拉特邦。虽然以前的一些研究已经实证研究了发达国家的邻里效应，但很少有人专门关注发展中国家的城市地区。该项目填补了关于城市贫困的空间动态和关于居住安排如何影响发展中国家经济流动性的实证研究方面的空白。它也增加了越来越多的文献，寻找同伴对学习和行为变化的影响的证据。传播这些研究的研究结果将产生广泛的影响，帮助决策者就针对城市贫民的住房、基础设施和银行服务的地点和特点作出关键决定。第一项研究审查了阿赫梅达巴德的一项城市搬迁计划，该计划通过抽签为以前居住在内城贫民窟的低收入妇女分配住房。我们使用从彩票中奖者和中奖者中收集的家庭调查数据，分析了从市中心搬到公共住房项目如何影响受益人及其家庭的收入，职业机会和社会流动性。这些调查结果直接关系到发展中世界许多地区的关键住房政策问题，例如，在现有贫民窟地区的住房升级与将贫民窟居民搬迁到“更好”社区的新住房之间的权衡。第二项研究使用了类似的公共住房实验，在一个社区中检查随机分配的不同社会地位的邻居的同伴效应的程度。经济背景影响向上流动。该分析利用社会距离和邻居群体多样性的差异来研究接触更富有或受教育程度更高的邻居如何影响态度，消费，投资和经济流动性。区分邻里的位置从邻里组成的影响事项的政策，因为政府必须决定不仅在哪里找到公共住房，但是否使用公共住房作为一种工具，以促进社区的社会经济融合。最后一项研究探讨了城市穷人的社交网络和社区位置如何影响获得金融服务，这是向上流动的一个重要因素。对城市贫民来说，小额供资机构是金融服务的主要来源。城市小额信贷机构在很大程度上依赖信贷员的社交和邻里网络来筛选客户。该研究利用阿赫梅达巴德最大的小额金融机构雇用的收款员的空间位置数据，研究客户与最近的收款员之间的距离变化如何影响获得金融服务的机会，并利用这种变化来研究金融服务对穷人生活的影响。越来越多的大量文献表明，获得金融服务可以大大改善穷人的经济机会;然而，在这个问题上仍然缺乏可靠的经验证据。

This project consists of three studies that investigate how social and spatial distance across and within neighborhoods affect the economic and social mobility of the urban poor, focusing on three specific channels: access to improved housing in a richer neighborhood, peer externalities within a neighborhood, and access to banking services offered through microfinance institutions. The studies collect and analyze household survey data from Ahmedabad, India's sixth most populous city located in one of India's most industrialized and fastest growing states, Gujarat. While a number of previous studies have empirically examined neighborhood effects in the developed world, few have focused specifically on urban areas of developing countries. This project fills this gap in empirical research on both the spatial dynamics of urban poverty and on how residential arrangements influence economic mobility in the developing world. It also adds to the growing literature that looks for evidence of peer effects on learning and behavioral change. Dissemination of research findings from these studies will have a broad impact by helping policy makers with key decisions related to the location and characteristics of housing, infrastructure and banking services targeted to the urban poor. The first study examines an urban relocation program in Ahmedabad that allocated housing to low income women who had previously lived in inner city ghettos by lottery. Using household survey data collected from lottery winners and losers 15 years after the lottery, we analyze how moving into public housing projects away from the inner city affected the income, occupational opportunities, and social mobility of beneficiaries and their families. These findings directly bear on key housing policy questions in many parts of the developing world, such as the trade-off between upgrading housing in existing slum areas versus relocating slum dwellers to new housing in "better" neighborhoods.The second study uses a similar public housing experiment to examine in one neighborhood the degree to which peer effects from randomly assigned neighbors of different socio-economic backgrounds influence upward mobility. The analysis makes use of differences in social distance and diversity of neighbor groups to investigate how exposure to wealthier or more educated neighbors influences attitudes, consumption, investment, and economic mobility. Distinguishing neighborhood location from neighborhood composition effects matters for policy since governments must decide not only where to locate public housing but whether to use public housing as an instrument to foster socio-economic integration of neighborhoods. The final study examines how social networks and neighborhood location of the urban poor affect access to financial services, an important element for upward mobility. For the urban poor, microfinance institutions (MFIs) are the primary source of financial services. Urban MFIs rely heavily on the social and neighborhood networks of loan officers to screen clients. The study uses data on the spatial location of collection officers employed by the largest MFI in Ahmedabad to examine how variation in a client's distance to the nearest collection officer affects access to financial services, and uses this variation to examine the impact of financial services on the lives of the poor. A large and growing literature suggests access to financial services can significantly improve the economic opportunities available to the poor; however, solid empirical evidence on this question is still lacking.