Sofie R. Waltl
University of Cambridge
Abstract
A common argument holds that ethnic discrimination in rental housing intensifies when housing is scarce. Linking ethnic gaps from 112 correspondence tests in 28 countries to market tightness and affordability, I find that minority applicants receive about one fifth fewer responses largely regardless of market conditions: gaps are unrelated to rent growth, rent burdens and vacancy across countries and within multi-city experiments, and only 1 of 31 specifications differs from random assignment at the 5% level, also when a less comparable rent-burden measure extends the coverage to all 28 countries. Repeated tests in the same market are less conclusive but too few. Scarcity is not a first-order driver of rental discrimination.
Keywords: housing discrimination; correspondence tests; market tightness; housing affordability; group threat; statistical discrimination \
JEL codes: J15, R21, R31, D83
