Neighborhood Effects on Decision-Making Processes by Low-Income Adults and Youths

社区对低收入成年人和青少年决策过程的影响

• 批准号: 8074051
• 负责人: Jens Ludwig
• 金额: $ 16.34万
• 依托单位: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-06-01 至 2013-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8074051
• 关键词: Affect; Americas; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Characteristics; Crime; Decision Making; Disadvantaged; Drug usage; Economics; Education; Elements; Environment; Evaluation; Evaluation Studies; Exercise; Family; Funding; Goals; Health; Health behavior; Housing; Individual; Injury; Knowledge; Lead; Learning; Life; Light; Low income; Maps; Measures; Mediating; Mental Health; Methods; Modeling; Nature; Neighborhoods; Obesity; Outcome; Pattern; Plague; Policies; Process; Psychology; Public Health; Public Policy; Randomized; Research; Residential Mobility; Respondent; Rest; Risk; Risk Behaviors; Safety; Schools; Series; Site; Social Behavior; Social Policies; Societies; Sorting - Cell Movement; Student Dropouts; Survey Methodology; Surveys; Testing; Time; Validation; Variant; Youth; base; cost; criminal behavior; design; discount; economic behavior; effectiveness measure; geographic difference; improved; innovation; interest; neighborhood safety; payment; physical conditioning; preference; programs; public health relevance; research study; response; social; socioeconomics; success; teenage fertility; treatment effect; willingness; young adult

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A wide range of social, economic, and health behaviors-such as school dropout, crime, injury, drug use, teen fertility, and obesity-vary dramatically across neighborhoods in America. People who stay in school, or avoid crime, drug use or teen fertility do so because they are willing to delay gratification, and appreciate the risks of these behaviors. The fact that these behaviors vary so dramatically across neighborhoods raises the possibility that neighborhood environments themselves may influence how people form preferences and make decisions that have important consequences for public health. A growing body of research in behavioral economics suggests plausible channels through which neighborhoods might influence elements of decision making. This project would exploit variation in neighborhood conditions generated by a unique HUD-funded randomized housing mobility experiment known as Moving to Opportunity (MTO), in order to study how neighborhood environments affect basic features of decision making and whether this is an important mechanism behind any neighborhood effects on public-health-related behaviors. Since 1994 MTO has randomly assigned some families to a program that enabled them to move to housing in less disadvantaged areas. Random assignment generates comparable groups of low-income families living in different types of neighborhoods, which can be used to overcome the selection problem that plagues most previous research and isolate the causal effects of changes in neighborhood. The long-term evaluation of MTO, currently in the field, collects a series of measures on how individuals think about choices, involving time and risk specifically, and includes an innovative choice experiment for real stakes. This proposal seeks additional funding in order to expand the scope of the analysis of the decision-making portion of the MTO survey beyond the interests or the means of the long-term MTO evaluation study. Among other goals, this project will seek to: map survey responses to preference parameters, in order to make full use of the information in the decision-making questions, improve the power of the treatment estimate, and generate generalizable results; identify the specific neighborhood characteristics that matter for decision-making outcomes in order to better understand the contingent nature of decision-making; and evaluate the effectiveness of the measures and methods used for eliciting time and risk preferences. In order to achieve these goals, this study will model and analyze preference parameters constructed based on response patterns to these survey measures, and probe the robustness of treatment effects estimated using these measures to alternative assumptions and specifications. It will employ modified models of treatment effects that exploit variation across MTO treatment groups and sites to identify the specific neighborhood conditions most responsible for any program effects. And it will perform simple validation exercises to test the effectiveness of the measures themselves. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: A wide range of economic, social, and health outcomes-including public health outcomes such as injuries, obesity, and teen fertility-vary dramatically across neighborhoods within the U.S. Decisions to engage in many of these behaviors hinges on the individual's willingness to delay gratification and to defer risk. This project seeks to exploit the inclusion of a range of decision-making survey measures and even a real-stakes decision making exercise in a large-scale randomized residential-mobility experiment known as Moving to Opportunity, in order to learn more about whether neighborhood environments influence basic features of decision making, and how much of the geographic variation in social outcomes is due to a direct effect of neighborhood conditions, such as neighborhood safety, on how individuals make the type of decisions that lead to these outcomes.

描述（由申请人提供）：美国各社区的各种社会、经济和健康行为（例如辍学、犯罪、受伤、吸毒、青少年生育和肥胖）差异巨大。人们之所以留在学校，或者避免犯罪、吸毒或青少年生育，是因为他们愿意延迟满足，并意识到这些行为的风险。事实上，这些行为在各个社区之间差异如此之大，这一事实表明，社区环境本身可能会影响人们如何形成偏好并做出对公共健康产生重要影响的决策。越来越多的行为经济学研究提出了社区可能影响决策要素的合理渠道。该项目将利用 HUD 资助的独特的随机住房流动性实验（称为“转向机会”（MTO））所产生的邻里条件变化，以研究邻里环境如何影响决策的基本特征，以及这是否是邻里对公共卫生相关行为产生影响的重要机制。自 1994 年以来，MTO 随机分配一些家庭参加一项计划，使他们能够搬到贫困地区的住房。随机分配会产生生活在不同类型社区的低收入家庭的可比群体，这可以用来克服困扰大多数先前研究的选择问题，并隔离社区变化的因果影响。目前该领域的MTO长期评估收集了一系列关于个人如何考虑选择的衡量标准，特别涉及时间和风险，并包括针对真实风险的创新选择实验。该提案寻求额外资金，以扩大 MTO 调查决策部分的分析范围，使其超出长期 MTO 评估研究的利益或手段。除其他目标外，该项目将寻求：将调查响应映射到偏好参数，以便充分利用决策问题中的信息，提高治疗估计的能力，并生成可推广的结果；确定对决策结果重要的具体社区特征，以便更好地理解决策的偶然性；评估用于得出时间和风险偏好的措施和方法的有效性。为了实现这些目标，本研究将对根据这些调查措施的响应模式构建的偏好参数进行建模和分析，并探讨使用这些措施对替代假设和规范估计的治疗效果的稳健性。它将采用修改后的治疗效果模型，利用 MTO 治疗组和地点之间的差异来确定对任何项目效果影响最大的特定社区条件。它将执行简单的验证练习来测试措施本身的有效性。 公共卫生相关性：美国各社区的经济、社会和健康结果（包括受伤、肥胖和青少年生育等公共卫生结果）差异很大。参与其中许多行为的决定取决于个人延迟满足和推迟风险的意愿。该项目旨在利用一系列决策调查措施，甚至在名为“走向机遇”的大规模随机居住流动性实验中进行实际风险决策练习，以便更多地了解邻里环境是否影响决策的基本特征，以及社会结果的地理差异有多少是由于邻里条件（例如邻里安全）对个人如何做出导致这些结果的决策类型的直接影响所致。