Is There a "Scarlet E"? The Effects of Public Eviction Records on Low-Income Households
with Hsi-Ling Liao, Alison Lodermeier, Stephen Stapleton
Presentations: SEA 2025, UEA 2025, AREUEA National Conference 2025, Virtual Economics of Poverty and Policy Seminar (VEPPS) 2025.
Awards: AREUEA Junior Scholars Program (JSP), NBER Graduate Fellowship on Consumer Financial Management
Abstract: Housing advocates, media outlets, and policymakers have long argued that a public eviction filing record—often referred to as the “Scarlet E”—carries significant consequences, particularly for low-income households. In this paper, we exploit variation induced by a record-sealing policy in Illinois to provide the first causal estimates of the effect of a public eviction filing on residential mobility, neighborhood quality, homelessness, and financial health. Two findings stand out: (i) sealing eviction records at the time of filing prevents tenant screening companies from accessing case information, whereas retroactive record sealing is ineffective in restricting public access; (ii) tenants with public evictions records are more likely to live doubled up with friends or family within the first year of the filing. Our results suggest that housing instability due to public eviction filings manifests primarily through household doubling up rather than through the more extreme forms of homelessness.
Reducing Readmissions by Addressing the Social Determinants of Health
with William N. Evans, Sarah Kroeger, Elizabeth L. Munnich, and Kathryn L. Wagner
American Journal of Health Economics, 7(1), 2021.
National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation 2021 Research Award Finalist
Abstract: Hospital readmissions generate enormous costs and are the subject of increased scrutiny among US lawmakers. The Affordable Care Act created the Community-Based Care Transitions Program (CCTP) to test models for improving care transitions after hospital discharge with the goal of reducing 30-day Medicare hospital readmission rates by 20 percent. Few of these demonstrations showed sustained reductions in readmission rates. In contrast to more traditional medically focused programs, the Chicago Southland Coalition for Transition Care (CSCTC) utilized social workers solely to manage care transitions in an effort to address nonmedical obstacles to recovery. Using a difference-in-differences model and the census of Medicare discharges over the 2010–15 period, we evaluate the impact of this program. We select as a comparison group hospitals in the Chicago area with similar pretreatment trends in readmission rates and total discharges. Treatment-on-treated estimates indicate that the CSCTC program reduced 30-, 60-, and 90-day readmission rates by a statistically significant 14 percent or more of the sample mean, and reduced readmission costs an amount equal to CSCTC program cost. Effects are driven by black and Hispanic patients as well as those with dual eligibility for both Medicare and Medicaid.
The Impact of Temporary Rental Subsidies on Homelessness: A Randomized Controlled Trial
with David Phillips and James Sullivan
Presentations: AREUEA 2025, Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) Summer Research Workshop (co-presented with David Phillips) 2025
Supported by NSF and J-PAL North America
Abstract: Unconditional, indefinite housing subsidies have been shown to reduce homelessness, but such programs are massively over-subscribed. Policymakers have expanded less expensive, time-limited Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) subsidies to serve more people, with little empirical backing. Time-limited rental subsidies are predicated on the idea that homelessness results from financial constraints that can be addressed with temporary assistance. We conduct a randomized controlled trial that provides temporary rental subsidies to single, homeless adults. During the 30 months after random assignment, the treatment group receives an unconditional average of about $10,000 in financial assistance, even though only about half of those assigned to the treatment group successfully lease a unit with assistance. Preliminary results indicate that this assistance leads to a reduction in homelessness of one third and a reduction in the number of shelter days by two-thirds while the subsidy is active. Preliminary sub-sample results indicate that a substantial portion of these effects persist after the subsidy ends. Long-term follow-up will be available for three-quarters of the sample by summer 2025.
Better Outcomes, Lower Costs: Evidence from Competitive Bidding in WIC [public draft coming soon][slides]
with Rebecca Brough
Abstract: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, popularly known as WIC, serves about 40 percent of all infants in the US. The largest expense for the federal government in this program is infant formula. This paper explores the health effects of the most prominent cost-containment effort in the WIC program— the introduction of sole-source infant formula contracts awarded to manufacturers through a competitive bidding process—the “rebate system”—in the late 1980s. Exploiting the staggered adoption of this system across states, we find that sole-source contracting reduced the incidence of low birth weight by 1.4 percent and increased average birth weight by 5.7 grams. There are particularly large effects for Black infants, whose incidence of low birth weight decreased by 3.6 percent and whose average birth weight increased by 11 grams. Evidence from enrollment and per-participant expenditure data suggests these health improvements were driven by increased WIC enrollment rather than changes in the quality of the food package.
Hidden Homelessness: Measuring Doubled-Up Rates with Consumer Reference Data
with Alison Lodermeier
The Effects of Temporary Rental Subsidies on Crime and Health
with David Phillips and Jim Sullivan