What Do Randomized Studies of Housing Mobility Demonstrate? Causal Inference in the Face of Interference

• Published in: Journal of the American Statistical Association Vol. 101; no. 476; pp. 1398 - 1407
• Main Author: Sobel, Michael E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Alexandria, VA Taylor & Francis 01.12.2006; American Statistical Association; Assoc; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Applications; Applications and Case Studies; Causal inference; Control groups; Estimation; Estimators; Exact sciences and technology; General topics; Housing; Inference; Interference; Leases; Mathematics; Mobility; Neighborhood effects; Neighborhoods; Neighbourhoods; Poverty; Probability and statistics; Random allocation; Random sampling; Randomized algorithms; Research trends; Sciences and techniques of general use; Social interaction; Social mobility; Social sciences; Stable unit treatment value assumption; Statistics; Vouchers; Causal inference; Treatment efficiency; Interference; Average; Neighborhood effects; Statistical estimation; Covariate; Mean estimation; Stable unit treatment value assumption; Statistical method; Unbiased estimation; Treatment effect; Application

During the past 20 years, social scientists using observational studies have generated a large and inconclusive literature on neighborhood effects. Recent workers have argued that estimates of neighborhood effects based on randomized studies of housing mobility, such as the "Moving to Opportuni...