Estimating the distortionary effects of ethnic quotas in Singapore using housing transactions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wong, Maisy
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.04.006
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 131-145
• 关键词: segregation; regulation; Ethnic; Quotas

摘要

Desegregation is a key policy issue in many countries. I investigate a residential desegregation program in Singapore - the ethnic housing quotas. I show that choice restrictions imposed on apartment blocks above the quota limits (constrained) could have distortionary effects, causing price and quantity differences for constrained versus unconstrained blocks. 1 test these predictions by hand-matching more than 500,000 names in the phonebook to ethnicities, to calculate ethnic proportions at the apartment block level. I can then investigate differences for constrained and unconstrained blocks close to the quota limits and test for sorting around the limits. I find that price differences are between 3% and 5%. Quantity effects are economically significant, translating to longer time-on-market durations. Selection cannot fully explain these results. My results point to challenges in achieving desegregation using quantity restrictions. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.