The emergence of asset accumulation programs at local and state levels, along with growing bipartisan support for a national IDA demonstration, makes applied research both possible and necessary. Studies that evaluate the implementation, performance , and impacts of IDAs and other asset-based anti-poverty initiatives will be critical in assessing the potential of domestic policy built in part on special savings accounts. In planning and implementing such evaluations, researchers can get some guidanc e from previous studies on effects of asset holding.
This paper summarizes findings from 25 studies addressing the personal and social effects of asset holding. The research reviewed here examines effects of asset holding on (1) personal well-being, (2) economic security, (3) civic behavior and commun ity involvement, (4) women's status, and (5) well-being of children. Findings from the studies are briefly described and then summarized in tables (See Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) according to these general categories of effects. The paper ends with implications for research on asset-based anti-poverty initiatives.
In Assets and the Poor, Sherraden (1991) suggests that assets have a wide range of positive personal and social effects on well-being beyond consumption, and he envisions anti-poverty applications of asset-based policy. This work has generated local and state program initiatives to help poor people accumulate assets for purposes such as education, home purchase, and microenterprise development (Edwards & Sherraden, 1995). Federal legislation for an IDA demonstration has bipartisan support; the current Senate bill is sponsored by Dan Coats (R, IN) and Carol Moseley-Braun (D, IL). It appears that a number of new IDA projects will be developed and implemented across the country over the next several years, serving a variety of different populations and using a range of different program designs.
The emergence of IDA programs at local and state levels, along with growing support for a national IDA demonstration, makes applied research both possible and necessary. Studies that evaluate the implementation, performance, and impacts of IDAs and other asset-based anti-poverty initiatives will be critical in assessing the potential of domestic policy built in part on individual savings accounts. In planning and implementing such studies, IDA evaluators can be guided in part by previous research o n effects of asset holding.
The first group of studies focuses the relationship between assets and personal well-being (Table 1). These studies cumulatively suggest positive effects of assets on life satisfaction and self-efficacy and negative effects on depression and problematic alcohol use (Finn, 1994; Page-Adams & Vosler, 1995; Rohe & Stegman, 1994a; Yadama & Sherraden, 1996). Assets also appear to be associated with being self-directed, intellectually flexible, and future-oriented (Kohn, Naoi, Schoenbach, Schooler & Slomczynski, 1990; Yadama & Sherraden, 1996). However, the effect of assets on stress is not consistent from study to study, with some research su ggesting a positive relationship between assets and stress for low-income families (Finn, 1994; Rocha, 1994). Stress is a problematic dependent variable because it may have both constructive and destructive features.
Research on the relationship between assets and economic security (Table 2) suggests positive outcomes for diverse groups of asset holders, and this holds true whether security is measured objectively or subjectively. For example, assets help reduce welfare receipt among low-income people with small businesses and reduce perceived economic strain among auto workers stressed by a pla nt closing (Page-Adams & Vosler, 1995; Raheim, 1995). Other studies in this group find that perceived economic security helps explain the nearly universal desire for homeownership among British military families, and that high rates of land and small bus iness ownership in one's community of origin have positive effects on future economic security among immigrants to the US from Mexico (Chandler, 1989; Massey & Basem, 1992). Finally, asset accumulation in Singapore's Central Provident Fund has dramatical ly improved the economic well-being of CPF members, especially in terms of housing and health care (Sherraden, Nair, Vasoo, Liang & Sherraden, 1995). Overall, the evidence regarding economic security is solidly positive.
Evidence on the relationship between assets and civic behavior is mixed (Table 3). While some studies in this area suggest positive effects of assets on recycling behavior and involvement in block associations, others find limited asset effects on civic involvement beyond the neighborhood level (Oskamp, Harrington, Edwards, Sherwood, Okuda & Swanson, 1991; Perkins, Fl orin, Rich, Wandersman & Chavis, 1990; Rohe & Stegman, 1994b; Thompson, 1993). Further, if assets do have effects on civic behavior, these effects may not be direct. One of the studies in this group finds positive asset effects on community involvement, but this effect occurs almost entirely through cognition or knowledge about asset accumulation strategies (Cheng, Page-Adams & Sherraden, 1995). Thus, the Jeffersonian formulation of civic involvement based on property holding requires more research, an d possibly greater specification in the future.
For women (Table 4), assets are associated with higher levels of social status in the home and in the larger community, increased contraceptive use, and improved material conditions of families (Noponen, 1992; Schuler & Hashemi, 1994). In addition, several studies point to a relationship between asset holding and lower levels of marital violence (Levinson, 1989; Page-Adams, 1995; Petersen, 1980; Schuler & Hashemi, 1994). This relationship seems to hold whether assets are measured at the individual level or at the household level, suggesting that both individual and joint ownership of assets increase safety from marital violence. The consistency of findings in this area is particularly noteworthy because domestic violence research in the US has bee n overwhelmingly focused on psychological, rather than economic, issues.
Cumulatively, studies addressing the relationship between parental assets and children's well-being (Table 5) find positive effects on self-esteem among adolescents (Whitbeck, Simmons, Conger, Lorenz, Huck & Elder, 1991); staying in school, avoiding early pregnancy, and facilitating saving among teens (Green & White, 1994; Pritchard, Myers & Cassidy, 1989); and homeowning among adult chi ldren (Henretta, 1984). Assets also appear to reduce vulnerability to poverty for children in white and African-American female-headed households (Cheng, 1995). In fact, some of the strongest and most consistent empirical evidence for the positive effec ts of assets come from studies involving outcomes for children. The evidence regarding positive effects of homeownership for children is particularly convincing. Many of these effects are largest for children from low income families.
In early theoretical work on asset holding, Sherraden (1991) suggested that assets positively affect outcomes such as long-range planning, family stability, efforts to build and maintain assets, development of human capital, personal efficacy, socia l status, community involvement, and political participation. Not all of these general propositions are supported by the studies summarized here, but many are. Other asset effects -- particularly those involving the well-being of women -- appear to be v ery prominent as well.
The studies summarized here were chosen in a somewhat arbitrary "literature review" manner and, thus, provide only a first look at what we may learn about the personal and social effects of assets. Nonetheless, the general picture that emerges from this group of studies is that asset holding has multiple positive impacts in people's lives. Further, some studies point to particularly strong effects for people who are economically vulnerable. The potential implications of these findings for social p olicy are profound -- and heretofore largely ignored -- but applied research will be necessary to confirm or disconfirm positive outcomes in the context of purposeful asset-based policy demonstrations.
Second, evaluations that identify the effects of assets at two or more points in time will be particularly helpful. Longitudinal designs are necessary because of the causal nature of the theoretical statements underlying asset-based policy proposal s. For example, if IDA programs are built on the suggestion that asset holding at one point in time increases well-being at a later point in time, researchers would ideally collect evaluative information at those two points in time.
Third, the best evaluation designs will be those that address alternative explanations for findings that support the suggestion that assets have positive effects on well-being. There are two alternative explanations for such findings: 1) positive e ffects on well-being could result from income, rather than assets; and 2) certain personal and social characteristics indicative of well-being could be causes, rather than consequences, of asset accumulation. In other words, evaluations should determine the effects of asset accumulation on well-being while controlling for the effects of income, and test for reciprocal relationships between asset accumulation and well-being. These are not mutually exclusive explanations; all can be true simultaneously an d in fact are likely to be so (Sherraden, 1991; Yadama & Sherraden, 1996). The key issue is whether asset effects exist, and how strong they are, after controlling for the alternative explanations.
Turning to guidance for evaluators from prior empirical work, findings from studies summarized above point to several potentially fruitful areas of inquiry regarding specific asset effects. First and foremost, evaluators will want to keep economic w ell-being at the center of their investigations given the consistency of previous findings suggesting positive economic effects of assets. In measuring such effects, it will be important to include both objective and subjective measures of economic well- being. One of the key questions to be answered about the effects of asset accumulation is also deceptively simple -- Are people better off when they are accumulating assets? Measuring this both on the basis of dollars in asset accounts and on the basis of how participants feel about their economic circumstances in light of those accounts will be central to understanding the economic effects of IDA programs.
A second implication that emerges from the findings of earlier studies involves the notable effects of assets on the well-being of both women and children. Sherraden, Page-Adams, and Yadama (1995) suggest that future studies of intra-family asset d istribution may be particularly fruitful given gender and generational diversity within households. With these issues in mind, asset-based program evaluators will want to pay attention to the effects of asset accumulation for members of participants' hou seholds, as well as for the participants themselves. The best evaluations will gather information from various members of a household rather than from a single informant.
Previous studies also suggest the need for asset-based program and policy evaluations to include brief questions asking people directly to assess the effects of assets in their lives. Information from responses to such questions does not always com pletely parallel correlations based on standardized measures. While it may be that response bias plays a large role in this kind of discrepancy, it is also possible that some standardized measures of personal and social well-being are not entirely adequa te for tracking asset effects. In either case, balancing standardized measures with questions that ask people for their direct assessments of asset effects will be a helpful approach in evaluations at this early stage.
A fourth implication that emerges on from this review of empirical literature is that evaluators should give some thought to multiple dimensions of personal well-being. Research suggests the possibility that asset accumulation has positive effects on some dimensions of personal well-being and negative effects on others. By way of example, it appears that homeownership increases both stress and self-efficacy for low-income people. Researchers will want to identify and clearly define specific dimensions of personal well-being that are of interest.
Turning to the effects of asset holding on social well-being, program and policy evaluators can be guided in part by previous studies on civic behavior and community involvement. One implication that emerges from this group of studies is the import ance of assessing community involvement at several levels, including the immediate neighborhood. While several standardized measures have been used to assess community involvement in social research, many of them focus on connections with voluntary assoc iations. Evaluators of IDAs and other asset-based programs will want to assess effects in the neighborhood, perhaps even at the block level. This will be of particular importance in programs involving homeownership and microenterprise. A second suggest ion that emerges from the review of community involvement studies is that economic and program knowledge about asset accumulation may help explain the relationship between asset accumulation and civic behavior. Researchers will want to assess participant s' knowledge about building assets and other aspects of economic literacy.
We close with a couple of thoughts about the research challenges that lie ahead. Asset-based policy is a new way of thinking about domestic policy, particularly anti-poverty policy, in Western welfare states. Previous policy has done little to enco urage, and has often discouraged, asset accumulation among the poor. But asset-based policy is in the early stages of formation. There is little guidance about how to proceed in terms of policy development or implementation. Moreover, the concept of an IDA is very flexible; it invites innovation, creativity, and adaptation to many different populations and purposes.
In these circumstances, wide experimentation is desirable and is almost inevitable. A range of state and local programs with great variation is preferable to cookie-cutter replication of a fixed IDA design. But evaluation is challenging and messy i n such circumstances. It will be important to learn as much as possible from every IDA demonstration and program, no matter how small. In the beginning, there is an important role for studies of implementation and preliminary information on outcomes. T hese may be accomplished through case studies, in-depth interviews, and focus groups (Sherraden, Page-Adams, Emerson, Beverly, Scanlon, Cheng, Sherraden & Edwards, 1995). Control or comparison group designs may be possible in some cases, and if so, they should be vigorously pursued. But a large sample, multi-site demonstration and evaluation will be possible only with major federal or private funding.
Finally, evaluations of IDAs and other asset building initiatives should do more than count asset accumulation. Asset-based policy interventions are theoretically driven. There are clearly stated hypotheses on economic, personal, and social effects of asset accumulation, and outcome evaluations should proceed from this basis. In this situation, there is no great separation between "basic research" and "applied research." There is a long-standing debate in the social sciences about whether social inquiry should be basic or applied, oriented toward fundamental questions of human interaction or toward pressing issues of the day. But when a policy intervention is carefully thought out, with hypothesized effects, the distinction between basic and app lied social science should be minimal (see also Rossi, 1980).
In this vein, evaluators should be well aware that their work on investigating the effects of IDAs and other asset-based programs will likely impact a larger poverty research discussion. The overwhelming majority of studies addressing poverty in the US focus exclusively on income distribution and welfare recipiency. Yet, the studies reviewed here suggest that assets have some of their strongest positive effects among economically vulnerable populations (i.e., single-parent families, workers facing unemployment, women, and children). More collaborative work in the future between traditional poverty researchers and evaluators of asset-based programs and policy would be highly desirable.
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