TY - JOUR
T1 - Acts of discrimination
T2 - Evidence from the 1989 housing discrimination study
AU - Yinger, John
N1 - Funding Information:
* This paper is based on the Housing Discrimination Study, which was a major research project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. I am grateful to the hundreds of people who contributed to this study. My job as research director would not have been possible without their efforts. I would particularly like to thank Raymond Struyk, the project director, Margery Turner, the deputy research director, Cliff Schrupp, the director of field operations, and Lauria Grant, Nigel M. Grant, and Stephen Ross, my research assistants. I also thank The Russell Sage Foundation for funding. The opinions expressed in this paper should not be attributed to anyone but me.
PY - 1991/12
Y1 - 1991/12
N2 - This paper demonstrates the persistence of racial and ethnic discrimination in housing using evidence from the 1989 HUD-sponsored Housing Discrimination Study (HDS). The evidence comes from fair housing audits, a survey technique in which a black person and a white person (or an Hispanic and an Anglo) who are identically qualified for housing, successively visit a sales or rental agent. Discrimination is defined as systematically less favorable treatment of minority auditors. This paper focuses on the number of acts of discrimination in several types of agent behavior, including providing information about available units, offering assistance in finding a mortgage, or offering special rental incentives. On average, black and Hispanic house buyers encounter one act of discrimination each time they inquire about housing. The comparable figures for black and Hispanic apartment seekers are 0.83 acts and 0.53 acts, respectively. Multivariate analysis supports both the hypothesis that agents discriminate because of their own personal prejudice and the hypothesis that they discriminate because of the prejudice of their actual and potential Anglo customers.
AB - This paper demonstrates the persistence of racial and ethnic discrimination in housing using evidence from the 1989 HUD-sponsored Housing Discrimination Study (HDS). The evidence comes from fair housing audits, a survey technique in which a black person and a white person (or an Hispanic and an Anglo) who are identically qualified for housing, successively visit a sales or rental agent. Discrimination is defined as systematically less favorable treatment of minority auditors. This paper focuses on the number of acts of discrimination in several types of agent behavior, including providing information about available units, offering assistance in finding a mortgage, or offering special rental incentives. On average, black and Hispanic house buyers encounter one act of discrimination each time they inquire about housing. The comparable figures for black and Hispanic apartment seekers are 0.83 acts and 0.53 acts, respectively. Multivariate analysis supports both the hypothesis that agents discriminate because of their own personal prejudice and the hypothesis that they discriminate because of the prejudice of their actual and potential Anglo customers.
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U2 - 10.1016/S1051-1377(05)80016-6
DO - 10.1016/S1051-1377(05)80016-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:38149143452
VL - 1
SP - 318
EP - 346
JO - Journal of Housing Economics
JF - Journal of Housing Economics
SN - 1051-1377
IS - 4
ER -