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Housing Discrimination and the Toxics Exposure Gap in the United States: Evidence from the Rental Market

Peter Christensen1; Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri2; Christopher Timmins3

1 University of Illinois · 2 University of Los Andes · 3 Duke University

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2022 open access

Local pollution exposures have a disproportionate impact on minority households, but the root causes remain unclear. This study conducts a correspondence experiment on a major online housing platform to test whether housing discrimination constrains minority access to housing options in markets with significant sources of airborne chemical toxics. We find that renters with African American or Hispanic/Latinx names are 41% less likely than renters with white names to receive responses for properties in low-exposure locations. We find no evidence of discriminatory constraints in high-exposure locations, indicating that discrimination increases relative access to housing choices at elevated exposure risk.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00992
Volume
104 (4)
Pages
807-818
Language
en
Export
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