There Is No Free House: Ethnic Patronage in a Kenyan Slum

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Marx, Benjamin; Stoker, Thomas M.; Suri, Tavneet
• 署名单位: Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20160484
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 36-70
• 关键词: PROPERTY-RIGHTS; DISCRIMINATION; IMPACT

摘要

Using unique data from one of Africa's largest informal settlements, the Kibera slum in Nairobi, we provide evidence of ethnic patronage in the determination of rental prices and investments. Slum residents pay higher rents and live in lower quality housing (measured via satellite pictures) when the landlord and the locality chief belong to the same ethnicity. Conversely, rental prices are lower, and investments higher when residents and chiefs are co-ethnics. Our identification relies on the exogenous appointment of chiefs and is supported by several tests, including a regression discontinuity design.