Effects of the Seattle and Denver Income Maintenance Programs on the Housing Consumption of Participating Households. (RE-ANNOUNCEMENT of PB85-127058-see notes field for explanation)

摘要

This examination of the effects on participants' housing consumption of the Seattle and Denver Income Maintenance Experiments (SIME/DIME) found that income maintenance payments can be expected to have a positive but relatively limited effect on housing consumption. The SIME/DIME experiments were designed to test the effects on low - income households of a negative income tax program which provided families with a minimum guaranteed income. The analysis reported in this paper is based on data collected during regular periodic interviews of participants and on data from a special survey of the characteristics of dwelling units occupied by participating households in 1976. The study found that the estimated elasticity of housing demand with respect to experimental payments is relatively low (in the range or .2 to .4). Estimated experimental effects on homeowners are not statistically significant. When regression equations are estimated using data on housing consumption at the beginning of the experiment, a statistically significant relationship is found between housing consumption and experimental income maintenance payments received after the baseline period. Combined analysis of both the rental and the owner - occupied sectors results in higher estimated experimental effects than analysis of either sector alone. Analysis limited to households that moved during the experiment results in higher estimated experimental effects than analysis of the entire sample. Analysis limited to households enrolled in the experiment for 5 years leads to results similar to those obtained using both 3 - year and 5 - year families. This finding provides additional evidence that the results are not highly sensitive to the timing of the data collection. Although separate analysis of the ethnic groups in the experiment - blacks, whites, and Chicanos - reveals differences between these groups with regard to experimental effects on housing, these differences do not form a consistant pattern. Tabular data and 9 notes are provided.