IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/landec/v86y2010i1p79-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Discrimination in the Housing Market Be Reduced by Increasing the Information about the Applicants?

Author

Listed:
  • Ali M. Ahmed
  • Lina Andersson
  • Mats Hammarstedt

Abstract

We investigate how increasing the information about applicants affects discrimination in the rental housing market. We let four fictitious applicants, two with typical Arab/Muslim names and two with typical Swedish names, use application letters containing different amounts of information to apply for apartments over the Internet in Sweden. The Arab/Muslim applicants received fewer responses from the landlords than did the Swedish applicants. All of the applicants gained by providing more information about themselves, but the amount of discrimination against the Arab/Muslim applicants remained unchanged, indicating that increasing the amount of information about the applicants will not reduce discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2010. "Can Discrimination in the Housing Market Be Reduced by Increasing the Information about the Applicants?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(1), pages 79-90.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:86:y:2010:i:1:p:79-90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/86/1/79
    Download Restriction: A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ross, Stephen L. & Turner, Margery Austin & Godfrey, Erin & Smith, Robin R., 2008. "Mortgage lending in Chicago and Los Angeles: A paired testing study of the pre-application process," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 902-919, May.
    2. Ahmed, Ali M. & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2008. "Discrimination in the rental housing market: A field experiment on the Internet," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 362-372, September.
    3. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    4. Mats Hammarstedt, 2003. "Income from Work Among Immigrants in Sweden," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 49(2), pages 185-203, June.
    5. Margery A. Turner & Stephen L. Ross, 2003. "Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets Phase II: Asians and Pacific Islanders," Working papers 2003-18, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    6. Neeraj Kaushal & Robert Kaestner & Cordelia Reimers, 2007. "Labor Market Effects of September 11th on Arab and Muslim Residents of the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    7. James J. Heckman, 1998. "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 101-116, Spring.
    8. George Galster, 1990. "Racial steering by real estate agents: Mechanisms and motives," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 39-63, June.
    9. Yinger, John, 1986. "Measuring Racial Discrimination with Fair Housing Audits: Caught in the Act," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 881-893, December.
    10. Mats Hammarstedt & Ghazi Shukur, 2006. "Immigrants' Relative Earnings in Sweden — A Cohort Analysis," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(2), pages 285-323, June.
    11. Page Marianne, 1995. "Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets: Evidence from a Recent Audit Study," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 183-206, September.
    12. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    13. Jan Ondrich & Stephen Ross & John Yinger, 2003. "Now You See It, Now You Don't: Why Do Real Estate Agents Withhold Available Houses from Black Customers?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 854-873, November.
    14. Roychoudhury, Canopy & Goodman, Allen C., 1992. "An ordered probit model for estimating racial discrimination through fair housing audits," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 358-373, December.
    15. Margery A. Turner & Stephen Ross & George C. Galster & John Yinger, 2002. "Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 of the Housing Discrimination Study (HDS)," Working papers 2002-16, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen L. Ross, 2005. "The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination," Working papers 2005-19, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2006.
    2. Hanson, Andrew & Hawley, Zackary, 2014. "Where does racial discrimination occur? An experimental analysis across neighborhood and housing unit characteristics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 94-106.
    3. Auspurg, Katrin & Hinz, Thomas & Schmid, Laura, 2017. "Contexts and conditions of ethnic discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment in a German housing market," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 26-36.
    4. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2014. "Discrimination in the rental market for apartments," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 41-54.
    5. Mourelatos, Evangelos & Oikarinen, Elias, 2023. "Ethnic discrimination during wartime: Evidence from a field experiment in the Finnish housing market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Michael Ewens & Bryan Tomlin & Liang Choon Wang, 2014. "Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 119-134, March.
    7. Hanson, Andrew & Hawley, Zackary, 2011. "Do landlords discriminate in the rental housing market? Evidence from an internet field experiment in US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2-3), pages 99-114, September.
    8. Zhao, Bo & Ondrich, Jan & Yinger, John, 2006. "Why do real estate brokers continue to discriminate? Evidence from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 394-419, May.
    9. Ahmed, Ali M. & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2008. "Discrimination in the rental housing market: A field experiment on the Internet," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 362-372, September.
    10. Flage, Alexandre, 2018. "Ethnic and gender discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from a meta-analysis of correspondence tests, 2006–2017," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 251-273.
    11. Mathieu Bunel & Samuel Gorohouna & Yannick L'Horty & Pascale Petit & Catherine Ris, 2016. "Discriminations ethniques dans l’accès au logement : une expérimentation en Nouvelle-Calédonie," TEPP Research Report 2016-08, TEPP.
    12. Zhao, Bo, 2005. "Does the number of houses a broker shows depend on a homeseeker's race?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 128-147, January.
    13. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    14. Ahmed, Ali M. & Andersson, Lina & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2008. "Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 234-238, September.
    15. Bosch, Mariano & Carnero, M. Angeles & Farré, Lídia, 2010. "Information and discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from a field experiment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 11-19, January.
    16. Jan Ondrich & Stephen Ross & John Yinger, 2003. "Now You See It, Now You Don't: Why Do Real Estate Agents Withhold Available Houses from Black Customers?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 854-873, November.
    17. John Yinger, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Consumer Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 23-40, Spring.
    18. Mathieu Bunel & Samuel Gorohouna & Yannick L’Horty & Pascale Petit & Catherine Ris, 2019. "Ethnic Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market: An Experiment in New Caledonia," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 65-97, January.
    19. Andrew Hanson & Zackary Hawley, 2023. "Restricted access: Real estate agent response to client race, ethnicity, gender, and side of market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(4), pages 855-890, July.
    20. Hanson, Andrew & Hawley, Zackary & Martin, Hal & Liu, Bo, 2016. "Discrimination in mortgage lending: Evidence from a correspondence experiment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 48-65.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:86:y:2010:i:1:p:79-90. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://le.uwpress.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.