IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jrefec/v31y2005i1p5-26.html

Have Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws Worked? Evidence from Trends in Black Homeownership

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Bostic

  • Richard Martin

Abstract

This paper explores the hypothesis that anti-discrimination legislation has been an important factor in shaping the evolution of minority homeownership spatial trends. It does so by studying homeownership patterns of black and non-black households during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s using Census data and data that proxies for the level of enforcement of the Fair Housing Act over time. The results provide unambiguous support for the view that enforcement has been a key factor for black homeownership since the 1970s, as we find a consistent positive relationship between fair housing policy enforcement and black homeownership growth. In addition, we find clear evidence that black homeowners gained access to more diverse and higher-income neighborhoods over time, with the shift occurring beginning in the 1980s and continuing in the 1990s. Importantly, both of these results are race-specific results, as there are no such patterns among non-black homeowners. Taken together, the results are consistent with the view that the housing-related civil rights legislation passed during the 1960s and 1970s helped alter, and reduce, the role that race played in housing markets. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Bostic & Richard Martin, 2005. "Have Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws Worked? Evidence from Trends in Black Homeownership," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 5-26, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jrefec:v:31:y:2005:i:1:p:5-26
    DOI: 10.1007/s11146-005-0991-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11146-005-0991-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11146-005-0991-7?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Griffith L. Garwood & Dolores S. Smith, 1993. "The Community Reinvestment Act: evolution and current issues," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Apr, pages 251-267.
    2. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    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. Stephen L. Ross, 2008. "Understanding Racial Segregation: What is known about the Effect of Housing Discrimination," Working papers 2008-15, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2008.
    2. Alex W. Bartik & Evan Mast, 2021. "Black Suburbanization: Causes and Consequences of a Transformation of American Cities," Upjohn Working Papers 21-355, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Stuart A. Gabriel & Stuart S. Rosenthal, 2006. "Secondary Mortgage Markets and Access to Credit: 1992-2002," Working Paper 8569, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    4. Carina Kaiser & Julia Freybote & Wolfgang Schäfers, 2025. "Governmental Restrictions and Real Estate Investor Risk Perception," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 70(4), pages 735-753, May.

    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. Terry Sicular, 1998. "Capital Flight and Foreign Investment: Two Tales From China and Russia," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 589-602, July.
    2. William J. Collins, 2001. "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 272-286, March.
    3. Bethany Everett & David Rehkopf & Richard Rogers, 2013. "The Nonlinear Relationship Between Education and Mortality: An Examination of Cohort, Race/Ethnic, and Gender Differences," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(6), pages 893-917, December.
    4. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    5. Kenneth Y. Chay, 1998. "The Impact of Federal Civil Rights Policy on Black Economic Progress: Evidence from the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 608-632, July.
    6. Scott Delhommer & Domonkos F. Vamossy, 2024. "Effect of State and Local Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination Laws on Labor Market Differentials," Papers 2404.03794, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2025.
    7. Robert A. Margo, 1993. "Explaining Black-White Wage Convergence, 1940-1950: The Role of the Great Compression," NBER Historical Working Papers 0044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Patrick Button & Philip Armour & Simon Hollands, 2023. "Estimating the Effects of the ADA Amendments Act on the Hiring and Termination of Individuals with Disabilities, Using New Disability Categorizations," Upjohn Working Papers 22-377, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    9. Kenneth Y. Chay & Jonathan Guryan & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2014. "Early Life Environment and Racial Inequality in Education and Earnings in the United States," Working Paper Series WP-2014-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    10. Atheendar Venkataramani & Rourke O'Brien & Elizabeth Bair & Christopher Lowenstein, 2025. "Political Power and Mortality: Heterogeneous Effects of the U.S. Voting Rights Act," Papers 2510.26857, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2025.
    11. Celeste K. Carruthers & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2017. "Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(3), pages 655-696.
    12. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1920 to 1970," Macroeconomics 0004035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2008. "Workplace Segregation in the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Skill," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 459-477, August.
    14. Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Racial Discrimination and Competition," NBER Working Papers 14273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Lex Borghans & Bas Ter Weel & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "People Skills and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 287-334, April.
    16. Alan B. Krueger & Jesse Rothstein & Sarah Turner, 2004. "Race, Income and College in 25 Years: The Continuing Legacy of Segregation and Discrimination," Working Papers 9, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    17. David H. Autor & John J. Donohue & Stewart J. Schwab, 2004. "The Employment Consequences of Wrongful-Discharge Laws: Large, Small, or None at All?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 440-446, May.
    18. Levine, Ross & Rubinstein, Yona & Levkov, Alexey, 2014. "Bank Deregulation and Racial Inequality in America," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 3(1), pages 1-48, January.
    19. Michael A. Boozer & Alan B. Kreuger & Shari Wolkon, 1992. "Race and School Quality Since Brown v. Board of Education," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992 Micr), pages 269-338.
    20. John Donohue III & James J. Heckman & Petra E. Todd, 1998. "Social Action, Private Choice, and Philanthropy: Understanding the Sources of Improvements in Black Schooling in Georgia, 1911-1960," NBER Working Papers 6418, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:kap:jrefec:v:31:y:2005:i:1:p:5-26. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.