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Are there economic benefits to being polite? Experimental evidence from the Israeli rental housing market

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  • Shahar Sansani

    (College of Management, Academic Studies)

Abstract

In this paper, I perform a correspondence test to determine whether there are differential response rates to polite versus impolite requests to see apartments for rent. Being polite (impolite) can send a positive (negative) signal when the receiving party has limited information. Because showing apartments is costly, landlords may filter potential tenants by tenants' politeness. To conduct this test, I sent 1000 requests to view available apartments for rent, through email and text messages, half polite and half impolite. I find no statistically significant difference in the proportion of positive call-backs received based on politeness through both means of communication, demonstrating that in this context, manners do not matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Shahar Sansani, 2018. "Are there economic benefits to being polite? Experimental evidence from the Israeli rental housing market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 565-573.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-17-01008
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Sansani, Shahar, 2017. "Are the Religiously Observant Discriminated Against in the Rental Housing Market? Experimental Evidence from Israel," MPRA Paper 81424, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Politeness; housing; correspondence study;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis

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