More than two million U.S. households have an eviction case filed against them each year. Policy makers 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 homelessness. We study the consequences of eviction for tenants using newly linked administrative data from two major urban areas: Cook County (which includes Chicago) and New York City. We document that before housing court, tenants experience declines in earnings and employment and increases in financial distress and hospital visits. These pre trends pose 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 hospital visits and reduces earnings, durable goods consumption, and access to credit in the first two years. Effects on housing and labor market outcomes are driven by effects for female and Black tenants. In the longer run, eviction increases indebtedness and reduces credit scores.

中文翻译：

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美国城市的驱逐和贫困。


每年有超过 200 万美国家庭被提起驱逐案件。联邦、州和地方各级的政策制定者越来越多地寻求减少驱逐次数的政策，理由是对租户的伤害以及与无家可归相关的高额公共支出。我们使用来自两个主要城市地区（库克县（包括芝加哥）和纽约市）的新链接行政数据来研究驱逐对租户的影响。我们记录了在住房法庭之前，租户的收入和就业率下降，财务困境和医院就诊次数增加。这些前趋势对理清相关性和因果关系构成了挑战。为了解决这个问题，我们使用了一种工具变量方法，该方法基于随机分配给不同宽大程度的法官的案件。我们发现，驱逐令会增加无家可归者和医院就诊人数，并减少头两年的收入、耐用品消费和获得信贷的机会。对住房和劳动力市场结果的影响是由女性和黑人租户的影响驱动的。从长远来看，驱逐会增加债务并降低信用评分。