Measuring Racial Discrimination with Fair Housing Audits: Caught in the Act

John Yinger

American Economic Review, 1986, vol. 76, issue 5, 881-93

Abstract: A survey technique called a "fair housing audit" provides a direct measure of racial discrimination in housing. This paper examines the econometric issues raised by audit data, measures the discrimination uncovered by a 1981 Boston study, and tests hypotheses about the causes of discrimination. The estimated level of discrimination is high: Black housing seekers are told about 30 percent fewer available housing units than are whites. The hypothesis tests indicate that the primary cause of this discrimination is that housing agents illegally promote their economic interests by catering to the racial prejudice of their current or potential white customers.

Date: 1986
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (216)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1816458.pdf full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:76:y:1986:i:5:p:881-93

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().