Working Paper

Immigration and housing rents in American cities

Abstract: Is there a local economic impact of immigration? Immigration pushes up rents and housing values in destination cities. The positive association of rent growth and immigrant inflows is pervasive in time series for all metropolitan areas. The author uses instrumental variables based on a \"shift-share\" of national levels of immigration into metropolitan areas. Conditioning on other variables, an immigration inflow equal to 1 percent of the city population is associated with increases in rents and housing values of about 1 percent. The results suggest an economic impact that is an order of magnitude bigger than that found on labor markets.

Keywords: Emigration and immigration; Housing - Prices;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Part of Series: Working Papers

Publication Date: 2003

Number: 03-12