Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18050
Authors: Marius Brülhart; Gianpaolo Klinke; Andrea Marcucci; Dominic Rohner; Mathias Thoenig
Abstract: We study market rents in the neighborhood of asylum seeker hosting centers. Our empirical setting exploits the quasi-random opening of centers and spatial allocation of asylum seekers in Switzerland. Rents within 0.7km of an active center are found on average to be 3.8% lower than rents in the control group. The price drop is more pronounced when centers host a higher share of asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan countries. In contrast, neither the religious affiliation of asylum seekers nor their inferred crime propensity affect prices significantly. Our findings are consistent with racial animus as the dominant driver of observed market outcomes
Keywords: Ethnic Prejudice; Willingness to Pay; Housing Prices; Refugee Centers
JEL Codes: J15; R31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Opening of an asylum center (J68) | Decrease in rental prices (R31) |
| Higher proportion of asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa (J11) | Larger decrease in rental prices (R31) |
| Inferred crime propensity (K42) | No significant effect on rental prices (R31) |
| Religious affiliation of asylum seekers (Z12) | No significant effect on rental prices (R31) |