Estimating the Distortionary Effects of Ethnic Quotas in Singapore Using Housing Transactions

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Real Estate Papers
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segregation
regulation
ethnic
quotas
Public Economics
Real Estate
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Wong, Maisy
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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. I 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.

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2014-07-01
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Journal of Public Economics
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