We use a multi-country field experiment to test the effect of a slum-housing intervention on the housing aspirations of non-beneficiary neighbors. Initially after treatment, nontreated households' aspirations to upgrade their dwelling are significantly higher compared to the treatment group,...

We use a multi-country field experiment to test the effect of a slum-housing intervention on the housing aspirations of non-beneficiary neighbors. Initially after treatment, nontreated households' aspirations to upgrade their dwelling are significantly higher compared to the treatment group,...

A fundamental question in economics is whether happiness increases pari passu with improvements in material conditions or whether humans grow accustomed to better conditions over time. We rely on a large-scale experiment to examine what kind of impact the provision of housing to extremely poor...

Subjective well-being may not improve in step with increases in material well-being due to hedonic adaptation, a psychological process that attenuates the long-term emotional impact of a favorable or unfavorable change in circumstances, such that people's happiness eventually returns to a stable...

Despite the importance of housing for people's well-being, there has been little work done to assess the causal impact of housing and housing improvement programs on health and welfare. In this paper the authors help fill this gap by investigating the impact of a large-scale effort by the...

We investigate the impact of a large-scale Mexican program to replace dirt floors with cement floors on child health and adult happiness. We find that replacing dirt floors with cement significantly improves the health of young children measured by decreases in the incidence of parasitic...