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

描述（由申请人提供）：广泛的社会，经济和健康行为，如辍学，犯罪，伤害，吸毒，青少年生育和肥胖，在美国各社区之间差异很大。人们留在学校，或避免犯罪，吸毒或青少年生育，因为他们愿意延迟满足，并意识到这些行为的风险。这些行为在不同社区之间差异如此之大，这一事实增加了一种可能性，即社区环境本身可能会影响人们如何形成偏好，并做出对公共健康有重要影响的决定。越来越多的行为经济学研究表明，邻里可能通过合理的渠道影响决策的要素。该项目将利用由HUD资助的一项独特的随机住房流动性实验（称为移动到机会（MTO））所产生的邻里条件的变化，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的影响背后的重要机制。自1994年以来，MTO随机分配了一些家庭参加一个方案，使他们能够搬到条件较好的地区的住房。随机分配产生了生活在不同类型社区的可比较的低收入家庭群体，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。目前正在进行的MTO长期评估收集了一系列关于个人如何思考选择的措施，特别是涉及时间和风险的措施，并包括一个创新的选择实验，以获得真实的利益。这项建议寻求额外的资金，以便扩大对多边贸易组织调查决策部分的分析范围，使其超出长期多边贸易组织评价研究的利益或手段。除其他目标外，该项目将寻求：将调查答复与偏好参数相对应，以便充分利用决策问题中的信息，提高处理估计的能力，并产生可推广的结果;确定对决策结果有影响的具体邻里特征，以便更好地理解决策的偶然性;并评估用于获取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，本研究将建模和分析偏好参数的基础上构建的响应模式，这些调查措施，并探讨使用这些措施的替代假设和规格估计的治疗效果的稳健性。它将采用改进的治疗效果模型，利用MTO治疗组和研究中心的差异，以确定对任何计划效果最负责任的特定邻近条件。它将进行简单的验证工作，以测试措施本身的有效性。 公共卫生相关性：一个广泛的经济，社会和健康的结果，包括公共卫生的结果，如伤害，肥胖和青少年生育率在美国的决定，从事许多这些行为取决于个人的意愿，以延迟满足和推迟风险的社区之间的差异显着。该项目旨在利用一系列决策调查措施，甚至是一个大规模的随机住宅流动性实验中的真正利害关系的决策练习，称为移动到机会，以了解更多关于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的直接影响，比如邻里安全，关于个人如何做出导致这些结果的决定。

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.