Eviction and Poverty in American Cities

Robert Collinson, John Humphries, Nicholas Mader (), Davin Reed, Daniel Tannenbaum and Winnie van Dijk ()

No 21-40, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: More than two million U.S. households have an eviction case filed against them each year. Policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels are increasingly pursuing policies to reduce the number of evictions, citing harm to tenants and high public expenditures related to home lessness. We study the consequences of eviction for tenants, using newly linked administrative data from Cook County (which includes Chicago) and New York City. We document that prior to housing court, tenants experience declines in earnings and employment and increases in financial distress and hospital visits. These pre trends are more pronounced for tenants who are evicted, which poses a challenge for disentangling correlation and causation. To address this problem, we use an instrumental variables approach based on cases randomly assigned to judges of varying leniency. We find that an eviction order increases homelessness, and reduces earnings, durable consumption, and access to credit. Effects on housing and labor market outcomes are driven by impacts for female and Black tenants

JEL-codes: I30 J01 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54
Date: 2022-12-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Eviction and Poverty in American Cities* (2024)
Working Paper: Eviction and Poverty in American Cities (2023)
Working Paper: Eviction and Poverty in American Cities (2022)
Working Paper: Eviction and Poverty in American Cities (2022)
Working Paper: Eviction and Poverty in American Cities (2022)
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DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2022.40

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