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The Housing Market Impact of State-Level Anti-Discrimination Laws, 1960-970

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  • William J. Collins

Abstract

This paper measures the housing market impact of state-level anti-discrimination laws in the 1960s using household-level and census-tract data. State-level fair-housing' laws attempted to bar discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and national origin in the sale, rental, and financing of housing, and they were the direct antecedents of the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968. Their influence on the housing market outcomes of African Americans has not been assessed in previous work by economists, but policy variation across states during the 1960s provides an opportunity to pursue such estimates. During the 1960s, blacks' housing market outcomes improved relative to whites', and the proportion of exclusively white census tracts declined markedly. But I find little evidence that the fairhousing laws contributed to those changes. Rather, the bulk of the evidence indicates that the laws' effects on blacks' housing market outcomes, on residential segregation, and on the value of property in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods were negligible.

Suggested Citation

  • William J. Collins, 2003. "The Housing Market Impact of State-Level Anti-Discrimination Laws, 1960-970," NBER Working Papers 9562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9562
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Leah Platt Boustan & Robert A. Margo, 2011. "White Suburbanization and African-American Home Ownership, 1940-1980," NBER Working Papers 16702, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

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