“Sort Selling”: Political Polarization and Residential Choice

W. Ben McCartney, John Orellana and Calvin Zhang

No 21-14, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: Partisanship and political polarization are salient features of today’s society. We merge deeds records with voter rolls and show that political polarization is more than just “political cheerleading.” Descriptively, homeowners are more likely to sell their homes and move when their next-door neighbors are affiliated with the opposite political party. We use a novel, new-next door neighbor identification strategy along with rich demographic control variables and time by-geography fixed effects to confirm causality. Consistent with a partisanship mechanism, our results are strongest when new next-door neighbors (i) are more likely to be partisan and (ii) live especially close by. Our findings help explain increases in political segregation, improve our understanding of residential choice, and illustrate the importance of political polarization for economic decision-making.

Keywords: Political Polarization; Residential Choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 H31 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2021-03-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedpwp:93604

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DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2021.14

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