“Information Frictions in Rental Voucher Programs: Experimental Evidence from Chile”

Abstract. Recent evidence shows that incomplete take-up is significant in rental voucher programs. However, the reasons why many rental voucher holders fail to use their vouchers are unclear and have not received much attention in the literature. This research evaluates the first national online counseling program aimed at examining and addressing information frictions hindering voucher utilization in the Chilean rental voucher program, where five out of ten vouchers are left unused every year. We provided randomly assigned information to 11,149 voucher holders to examine whether a lack of information about the program, neighborhood characteristics, and unawareness of positive neighborhood effects for children, affect voucher utilization. Preliminary findings show significant effects on successful lease-up rates that are persistent twenty-four months after the final reminder. The most basic information produced the largest short-term impact, although the effects of providing the most comprehensive assistance increased over time. Results did not vary across multiple demographic characteristics. In contrast, there is large variation across groups with different potential supply-side barriers and information access. Results suggest that online counseling services are cost-effective to reduce information frictions, but that assistance to increase voucher utilization is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

“Rental Voucher Programs in Middle Income Countries: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Chile”

Abstract. Many low and middle income countries are transitioning from ownership subsidies towards rental policies for low income families, similar to the US Housing Choice Voucher program. This paper presents the first evaluation of such programs in Chile, a middle-income country. I exploit the voucher assignment protocol to implement a local randomization regression discontinuity approach using applicants between March 2017 and September 2019. Two voucher schemes are evaluated, one offered to young families and one to elder people. I estimate treatment effects linking baseline administrative data to administrative and public data on a range of housing and neighborhood outcomes in December 2019. I further complement this data with a survey implemented in November 2020, eight months following the COVID-19 outbreak of March 2020. In the period prior to the pandemic, results were similar to the US literature: holding a voucher reduced overcrowding but did little to induce residential mobility to better neighborhoods for low income families. In contrast, results from November 2020 show that rental vouchers had a broader impact on recipient households. Holding a voucher affected how families were coping with the large unexpected shock caused by COVID-19. They experienced less unwanted mobility and were less likely to miss rent payments, cut food expenses or use emergency relief policies during this period. These results point to a previously underappreciated insurance role of rental subsidies in helping poor households cope with negative aggregated shocks.

“Skipping the Bag: Unintended Consequences of Disposable Bag Regulation”

with Tatiana Homonoff, Lee-Sien Kao and Christina Seybolt

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol 41(1), 2022.

Abstract. Regulation of goods associated with negative environmental externalities may decrease consumption of the targeted product, but may be ineffective at reducing the externality itself if close substitutes are left unregulated. We find evidence that plastic bag bans, the most common disposable bag regulation in the US, led retailers to circumvent the regulation by providing free thicker plastic bags which are not covered by the ban. In contrast, a regulation change that replaced the ban with a small tax on all disposable bags generated large decreases in disposable bag use and overall environmental costs. Our results suggest that narrowly-defined regulations (like plastic bag bans) may be less effective than policies that target a more comprehensive set of products, even in the case when the policy instrument itself (a tax rather than a ban) is not as strict.

“Neighborhood spillovers in rental voucher program participation: Evidence from Chile”

with Bárbara Flores

Abstract. Recent evidence shows that incomplete take-up is significant in rental voucher programs. However, the reasons why many rental voucher holders fail to use their vouchers are unclear and have not received much attention in the literature. This research evaluates the first national online counseling program aimed at examining and addressing information frictions hindering voucher utilization in the Chilean rental voucher program, where five out of ten vouchers are left unused every year. We provided randomly assigned information to 11,149 voucher holders to examine whether a lack of information about the program, neighborhood characteristics, and unawareness of positive neighborhood effects for children, affect voucher utilization. Preliminary findings show significant effects on successful lease-up rates that are persistent twenty-four months after the final reminder. The most basic information produced the largest short-term impact, although the effects of providing the most comprehensive assistance increased over time. Results did not vary across multiple demographic characteristics. In contrast, there is large variation across groups with different potential supply-side barriers and information access. Results suggest that online counseling services are cost-effective to reduce information frictions, but that assistance to increase voucher utilization is not a one-size-fits-all solution.