IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15460.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing for Discrimination in Rental Markets: Experimental Evidence from the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Koppensteiner, Martin Foureaux

    (University of Surrey)

  • Oliveira, Tania

    (University of Leicester)

  • Rohith, Nikitha

    (Coventry University)

Abstract

In this paper we provide novel insights on discrimination against immigrants in the UK rental market. We conducted a randomized-controlled trial close to a real-world setting where inquiries to view a property were made via phone inquiries with rental agencies and immigration background was signalled through non-UK accents. We document substantial discrimination against non-UK applicants with non-UK applicants having a 13 percent lower chance of securing a viewing for a rental. We also document substantial heterogeneous effects, with much more pronounced effects in local areas with a lower share of immigrants. We find that the background of agency managers or the composition of agency staff does not attenuate the effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Koppensteiner, Martin Foureaux & Oliveira, Tania & Rohith, Nikitha, 2022. "Testing for Discrimination in Rental Markets: Experimental Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 15460, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15460
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15460.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Canopy Roychoudhury & Allen C. Goodman, 1996. "Evidence of Racial Discrimination in Different Dimensions of Owner‐Occupied Housing Search," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 161-178.
    8. Ondrich, Jan & Ross, Stephen L. & Yinger, John, 2000. "How Common is Housing Discrimination? Improving on Traditional Measures," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 470-500, May.
    9. Ondrich, Jan & Stricker, Alex & Yinger, John, 1999. "Do Landlords Discriminate? The Incidence and Causes of Racial Discrimination in Rental Housing Markets," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 185-204, September.
    10. Choi, Seok Joon & Ondrich, Jan & Yinger, John, 2005. "Do rental agents discriminate against minority customers? Evidence from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, March.
    11. Baldini, Massimo & Federici, Marta, 2011. "Ethnic discrimination in the Italian rental housing market," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-14, March.
    12. Joe Crawford & Kim McKee & Sharon Leahy, 2020. "More Than a Hostile Environment: Exploring the Impact of the Right to Rent Part of the Immigration Act 2016," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(2), pages 236-253, June.
    13. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:1:y:2014:p:135-167 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zanoni, Wladimir & Díaz, Lina, 2024. "Discrimination against migrants and its determinants: Evidence from a Multi-Purpose Field Experiment in the Housing Rental Market," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    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. 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.
    6. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    7. Andrew Hanson & Michael Santas, 2014. "Field Experiment Tests for Discrimination against Hispanics in the U.S. Rental Housing Market," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(1), pages 135-167, July.
    8. Acolin, Arthur & Bostic, Raphael & Painter, Gary, 2016. "A field study of rental market discrimination across origins in France," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 49-63.
    9. Julie Le Gallo & Yannick L'Horty & Loïc du Parquet & Pascale Petit, 2017. "Les discriminations dans l’accès au logement en France : Un testing de couverture nationale," TEPP Research Report 2017-11, TEPP.
    10. Sylvain Chareyron & Samuel Gorohouna & Yannick L'Horty & Pascale Petit & Catherine Ris, 2019. "Seeking for tipping point in the housing market : evidence from a field experiment," Working Papers hal-02334132, HAL.
    11. Mathieu Bunel & Yannick L'Horty & Loïc du Parquet & Pascale Petit, 2017. "Identifying preference-based discrimination in rental market: A field experiment in Paris," TEPP Working Paper 2017-06, TEPP.
    12. Murchie, Judson & Pang, Jindong, 2018. "Rental housing discrimination across protected classes: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 170-179.
    13. Mathieu Bunel & Yannick L'Horty & Loic Du Parquet & Pascale Petit, 2017. "Les Discriminations Dans L'Acces Au Logement A Paris : Une Experience Controlee," Working Papers halshs-01521995, HAL.
    14. Stephen L. Ross, 2005. "The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination," Working papers 2005-19, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2006.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Mariano Bosch & M. Carnero & Lídia Farré, 2015. "Rental housing discrimination and the persistence of ethnic enclaves," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 129-152, June.
    18. Sylvain Chareyron & Yannick L'Horty & Pascale Petit & Souleymane Mbaye, 2019. "Mesurer l’impact d’un courrier d’alerte sur les discriminations liées à l’origine," Working Papers hal-02333840, HAL.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discrimination; rental market; immigration; right-to-rent; UK;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • K37 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Immigration Law
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp15460. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.