IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/empleg/v19y2022i1p90-134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leases as Forms

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Hoffman
  • Anton Strezhnev

Abstract

We offer the first large‐scale descriptive study of residential leases, based on a novel dataset of ~170,000 residential leases filed in support of over ~200,000 Philadelphia eviction proceedings from 2005 through 2019. These leases are highly likely to contain unenforceable terms, and their pro‐landlord tilt has increased sharply over time. Matching leases with individual tenant characteristics, and to 16,261 unique owner‐landlords, we show that unenforceable terms are likely to be associated with more expensive leaseholds in richer, whiter parts of the city. This result is linked to particular landlords' growing adoption of shared forms, originally created by nonprofit landlord associations, and more recently available online for a nominal fee. Generally, such shared form leases contain worse rules for tenants than the proprietary leases they replace. Over time, it has become easier and cheaper for landlords to adopt such common forms, meaning that access to justice for landlords strips tenants of rights.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Hoffman & Anton Strezhnev, 2022. "Leases as Forms," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 90-134, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:19:y:2022:i:1:p:90-134
    DOI: 10.1111/jels.12309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12309
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jels.12309?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Christensen & Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri & Christopher Timmins, 2021. "Racial Discrimination and Housing Outcomes in the United States Rental Market," NBER Working Papers 29516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. John Eric Humphries & Nicholas Mader & Daniel Tannenbaum & Winnie van Dijk, 2019. "Does Eviction Cause Poverty? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Cook County, IL," CESifo Working Paper Series 7800, CESifo.
    3. Bucks, Brian & Pence, Karen, 2008. "Do borrowers know their mortgage terms?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 218-233, September.
    4. Imai, Kosuke & Khanna, Kabir, 2016. "Improving Ecological Inference by Predicting Individual Ethnicity from Voter Registration Records," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 263-272, April.
    5. Zenou, Yves & Boccard, Nicolas, 2000. "Racial Discrimination and Redlining in Cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 260-285, September.
    6. Stephen Choi & G. Gulati, "undated". "Innovation in Boilerplate Contracts: An Empirical Examination of Sovereign Bonds," University of Southern California Legal Working Paper Series usclwps-1006, University of Southern California Law School.
    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. Robert Collinson & John Eric Humphries & Nicholas Mader & Davin Reed & Daniel Tannenbaum & Winnie van Dijk, 2024. "Eviction and Poverty in American Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(1), pages 57-120.
    2. Sabrina T. Howell & Theresa Kuchler & David Snitkof & Johannes Stroebel & Jun Wong, 2021. "Lender Automation and Racial Disparities in Credit Access," NBER Working Papers 29364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Sabrina T. Howell & Theresa Kuchler & David Snitkof & Johannes Stroebel & Jun Wong, 2021. "Racial Disparities in Access to Small Business Credit: Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program," CESifo Working Paper Series 9345, CESifo.
    4. Stephanie Moulton & Cäzilia Loibl & Anya Samak & J. Michael Collins, 2013. "Borrowing Capacity and Financial Decisions of Low-to-Moderate Income First-Time Homebuyers," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 375-403, November.
    5. Christopher Mayer & Edward Morrison & Tomasz Piskorski & Arpit Gupta, 2014. "Mortgage Modification and Strategic Behavior: Evidence from a Legal Settlement with Countrywide," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2830-2857, September.
    6. Begley, Jaclene & Chan, Sewin, 2018. "The effect of housing wealth shocks on work and retirement decisions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 180-195.
    7. Kai On Wong & Osmar R Zaïane & Faith G Davis & Yutaka Yasui, 2020. "A machine learning approach to predict ethnicity using personal name and census location in Canada," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, November.
    8. Stephen L. Ross, 2003. "Ségrégation and Racial Preferences: New Theoretical and Empirical Approaches," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 71-72, pages 97-139.
    9. Finn E. Kydland & Peter Rupert & Roman Sustek, 2012. "Housing Dynamics over the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 18432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Meta Brown & Andrew F. Haughwout & Donghoon Lee & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2011. "Do we know what we owe? A comparison of borrower- and lender-reported consumer debt," Staff Reports 523, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. Florence Goffette-Nagot & Claire Dujardin, 2005. "Neighborhood effects, public housing and unemployment in France," Working Papers 0505, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    12. Dancsik, Bálint, 2017. "Számít-e a devizahiteles múlt?. A lakáshitelkamatok rögzítéséről szóló döntés vizsgálata mikroszintű adatokon [Analysing the decision of fixing housing loan interest rates on micro-level data: does," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1030-1055.
    13. Olof Åslund & John Östh & Yves Zenou, 2010. "How important is access to jobs? Old question--improved answer," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 389-422, May.
    14. Tito Boeri & Marta De Philippis & Eleonora Patacchini & Michele Pellizzari, 2015. "Immigration, Housing Discrimination and Employment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 82-114, August.
    15. J. Collins, 2011. "Mortgage Mistakes? Demographic Factors Associated with Problematic Loan Application Behaviors," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 586-599, December.
    16. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2020. "COVID-19, Race, and Redlining," GLO Discussion Paper Series 603, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Samuel Dodini & Donald R. Haurin & Stephanie Moulton & Maximilian D. Schmeiser, 2015. "How House Price Dynamics and Credit Constraints affect the Equity Extraction of Senior Homeowners," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-70, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. John Y. Campbell, 2013. "Mortgage Market Design," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-33.
    19. Gabriel, Stuart A. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2010. "Do the GSEs expand the supply of mortgage credit? New evidence of crowd out in the secondary mortgage market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 975-986, December.
    20. Keys, Benjamin J. & Pope, Devin G. & Pope, Jaren C., 2016. "Failure to refinance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 482-499.

    More about this item

    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:wly:empleg:v:19:y:2022:i:1:p:90-134. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1740-1461 .

    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.