Full Citation

Title: Room in the Kitchen for the Melting Pot: Immigration and Rental Prices

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2001

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Abstract: This paper studies the response of the housing market to immigration shocks. I find a positive association between immigrant flows and changes in rents in the United States’ Metropolitan Areas. Following Card’s (1990) approach, I examine the changes in rental prices in Miami and three comparison groups of cities after the 1980 Mariel boatlift. This exogenous immigration shock added an extra 9% to the renter population in the Miami area in one year. I find that differential real rental prices increased from 8-11% between 1979 and 1981. By 1983 the rent hike differential was still 7%. Higher quality units were not affected by the immigration shock. Units in predominantly low-income Spanishspeaking areas experienced an extra 6% differential hike with respect to other lowincome units in the Miami MSA. Relative housing prices moved in the opposite direction from rents in the short run.

Url: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.163.4568&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Authors: Saiz, Albert

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Publication Number: W01-7

Institution: Harvard University

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Publisher Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Migration and Immigration

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