Assessing the Allocation of CDBG to Community Development Need

Robert A. Collinson

Housing Policy Debate, 2014, vol. 24, issue 1, 91-118

Abstract: This article evaluates how well the current allocation formula for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program allocates funds with respect to community development need. We assemble an index of community development need from a variety of demographic and economic indicators which capture the components of need that can be addressed directly by the CDBG program based on its statutory objectives. We use this index to estimate the relation between funding levels and community development need and how this relation has changed over time. In particular, we assess the effectiveness of targeting by examining the horizontal and vertical equity of the formula. Results suggest that the relation between the formula data inputs and community development need has deteriorated over the past two decades. The present formula is shown to underfund Formula A grantees conditional on need and to overfund a select number of high-income, slow-growth, older communities. Finally, we consider several alternative formula specifications, which we evaluate against the community development needs index.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10511482.2013.854945 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:houspd:v:24:y:2014:i:1:p:91-118

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RHPD20

DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2013.854945

Access Statistics for this article

Housing Policy Debate is currently edited by Tom Sanchez, Susanne Viscarra and Derek Hyra

More articles in Housing Policy Debate from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().