IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jjieco/v69y2023ics088915832300028x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A field experiment on discrimination against foreigners in the rental housing market in Japan examining the 23 wards of Tokyo

Author

Listed:
  • Sugasawa, Takeru
  • Harano, Kei

Abstract

Discrimination against foreigners in rental housing markets has been recognized mainly in the U.S. and European countries. In Japan, the difficulties experienced by foreigners who move into rental housing have been reported only by media or government questionnaire surveys, and there is little quantitative evidence. We conduct a correspondence study to observe discrimination against foreigners in rental housing markets in Tokyo's 23 wards during December 2019 and February 2020. Our results show that those who use a Chinese or Korean name decrease their probability of receiving affirmative responses to rental applications by approximately 13% compared with those who use Japanese names. Additionally, we find that the COVID-19 crisis increased the discriminatory behavior of rental housing owners and realtors.

Suggested Citation

  • Sugasawa, Takeru & Harano, Kei, 2023. "A field experiment on discrimination against foreigners in the rental housing market in Japan examining the 23 wards of Tokyo," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jjieco:v:69:y:2023:i:c:s088915832300028x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101273
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915832300028X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101273?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
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2014. "Discrimination in the rental market for apartments," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 41-54.
    4. Vojtěch Bartoš & Michal Bauer & Julie Chytilová & Filip Matějka, 2016. "Attention Discrimination: Theory and Field Experiments with Monitoring Information Acquisition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1437-1475, June.
    5. 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.
    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. 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. Ayres, Ian & Siegelman, Peter, 1995. "Race and Gender Discrimination in Bargaining for a New Car," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 304-321, June.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    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. Alexandre Flage, 2018. "Ethnic and Gender Discrimination in Rental Housing Market, Evidence from Meta-Analysis of Correspondence Tests, 2006-2017," Working Papers 2018-04, CRESE.
    13. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:1:y:2014:p:135-167 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Suzuki, Masatomo & Kawai, Kohei & Shimizu, Chihiro, 2022. "Discrimination against the atypical type of tenants in the Tokyo private rental housing market: Evidence from moving-in inspection and rent arrear records," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    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. 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.
    2. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    3. Souleymane Mbaye, 2019. "Trois évaluations d’actions de lutte contre les discriminations," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph19-01 edited by Pascale Petit.
    4. Alexandre Flage, 2018. "Ethnic and Gender Discrimination in Rental Housing Market, Evidence from Meta-Analysis of Correspondence Tests, 2006-2017," Working Papers 2018-04, CRESE.
    5. Moritz, Raphael & Manger, Christian, 2022. "Somebody that I want to know: The non-monotonic effect of personality information on ethnic and gender discrimination in the market for shared housing," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Rich, Judy, 2014. "What Do Field Experiments of Discrimination in Markets Tell Us? A Meta Analysis of Studies Conducted since 2000," IZA Discussion Papers 8584, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ghekiere, Abel & Verhaeghe, Pieter-Paul, 2022. "How does ethnic discrimination on the housing market differ across neighborhoods and real estate agencies?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    9. Carlsson, Magnus & Eriksson, Stefan, 2014. "Discrimination in the rental market for apartments," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 41-54.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Luca Fumarco, 2017. "Disability Discrimination in the Italian Rental Housing Market: A Field Experiment with Blind Tenants," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 93(4), pages 567-584.
    13. 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.
    14. Fumarco, Luca, 2015. "Disability Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market – A Field Experiment on Blind Tenants," MPRA Paper 63899, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. 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.
    16. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Suzuki, Masatomo & Kawai, Kohei & Shimizu, Chihiro, 2022. "Discrimination against the atypical type of tenants in the Tokyo private rental housing market: Evidence from moving-in inspection and rent arrear records," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    20. Anthony Lepinteur & Giorgia Menta & Sofie R. Waltl, 2023. "Equal Price for Equal Place? Demand-Driven Racial Discrimination in the Housing Market," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-09, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).

    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:eee:jjieco:v:69:y:2023:i:c:s088915832300028x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622903 .

    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.