Hedonic Modeling of Singapore’s Resale Public Housing Market
By Jiakun Xu
The large-scale, high-density public housing market in Singapore invites hedonic analysis, due to its homogeneity in structure quality across all neighborhoods. This paper builds a time-dummy hedonic regression model incorporating geospatial features for a large dataset of resale transactions from 2000 to 2016. Significant anticipatory price effects are found for new subway stations, which peak at two years before station opening. A hedonic price index suggests that affordability was a problem during the sustained period of property price inflation from 2011 to 2013. District-level analysis shows evidence of increasing rent gradients, wealth disparities, and “lottery” effects in asset growth. I discuss the potential contributions of these insights to wealth and equity considerations in public policy
design.
Data available upon request. Email dus_asst@econ.duke.edu
Advisors: Charles Becker, Tracy Falba | JEL Codes: C21, R3, R31, R38, R41
The Effect of Minority History on Racial Disparities in the Mortgage Market: A Case Study of Durham and New Haven
By Jisoo Yoon
In the aftermath of the housing market crash, the concentration of subprime mortgage loans in minority neighborhoods is a current and long-standing issue. This study investigates the presence of racial disparities in mortgage markets by examining two cities with contrasting histories of African American and Hispanic establishment: Durham, North Carolina and New Haven, Connecticut. This study examines data by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), and distills the effect of minority legacy on the perception of racial risk by using econometric instruments to separate the behavior of national lenders and local lenders. The econometric methods allow national lenders to reflect objective risk measures and neighborhood race dynamics, while local lenders reflect subjective attitudes towards certain races. With its longer history of African American presence, Durham shows a positive attitude towards Black borrowers at the local level, while New Haven shows a more favorable attitude towards its Hispanic residents. Nonetheless, racial legacy also materializes as a negative factor in the form of increased residential segregation and spillover effects. Furthermore, a temporal variation analysis of pre- and post-mortgage market reform data affirms the disappearance of racial bias and continued presence of spillover risk in Durham.
Advisor: Christopher Timmins | JEL Codes: C01, G21, J15, R21, R23, R31 | Tagged: Econometrics, Mortgages, Economics of Minorities, Races, Census, Migration, Population, Neighborhood Characteristics, Housing Supply and Market
Manufactured Housing Securitization
By Renan Cunha
Through prices of manufactured homes rose in the 2000’s, demand fell dramatically because of the boom in the stick-built housing market. One of the stated goals of securitization is to increase the supply of credit and decrease the cost of lending to make borrowing accessible to more homeowners. This paper will study the effect of securitization of manufactured home loans on the availability of credit for borrowers in North Carolina.
Advisor: Charles Becker | JEL Codes: E51, R3, R31 | Tagged: Credit Availability, Manufactured Housing, Securitization, Trailer Parks
Race and Pollution Correlation as Predictor of Environmental Injustice
By Marissa Meir
Environmental injustice is a theory that claims distributions of toxic, hazardous and dangerous waste facilities are disproportionately located in low-income communities of color. This paper empirically demonstrates an alternative cause of environmental injustice- that low-income minorities are less likely to receive sizeable enough loans to buy a house in a cleaner area. It highlights a significant time in history, from 1999 to 2007, when wealth constraints were eased and loan amounts increased for people with the same income. The results show that minorities increase their demand of environmental goods given an increase in loan amounts, suggesting that people of color care about environmental quality, but, due to wealth constraints, do not have the same opportunities
in the housing market.
Advisor: Christopher Timmins | JEL Codes: P46, P48, Q50, Q53, Q56, Q58, R20, R21, R31, R32 | Tagged: Air Quality, Environmental Injustice, Housing Market, Income, Loan, Wealth Constraints
Economic Racism: A Look at Rental Prices in 1930
By Basel Fakhoury
The Great Migration caused massive demographic changes in Northeastern and Midwestern cities as African Americans moved from the South to the North. These changes led to economic discrimination and segregation within northern cities. This paper compares African American and white rental prices in four major cities: Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia in an effort to see how this discrimination and segregation affected rental prices. The results consistently show that in the most precise geographic area, prices rise as the concentration of blacks in those neighborhoods rise, which I believe is a result of overcrowding.
Advisor: Patrick Bayer | JEL Codes: J1, J11, J15, R31 | Tagged: Economic Discrimination, Housing Markets, Segregation, The Great Migration
Trailer Park Economics
By Caitlin Gorback
In this paper, we explore the various reasons behind the development of the American institution of trailer parks. The first two models arise in equilibrium, the last two respond to housing shocks. Models include “Bad Tenants” in which tenants and landowners contract to protect against bad neighbors, a basic “Capital Constraints model in which tenants and landowners share the burden of capital costs, “Uncertain Growth” in which landowners respond to boom and bust economic growth, and “Long vs. Short Run Growth” in which landowners must decide how to invest on their land given rates of land appreciation.
Advisor: Charles Becker | JEL Codes: R21, R23, R31 | Tagged: Housing, Manufactured Housing, Rural Growth, Trailer Parks, Urban Growth
