Refugee Immigration and the Housing Market

• In this paper we examine the short-run housing market effects of refugee immigration to Sweden. Given that Sweden is a major refugee receiving country, it constitutes an interesting and important case to study. To deal with the endogeneity resulting from the refugees' location choices, we use an econometric specification that includes neighborhood fixed effects and an instrumental variable that is based on a historical settlement pattern mainly determined by a refugee placement policy. We find that refugee immigration to small neighborhoods has no average effect on changes in housing prices in that neighborhood. We find a positive effect on increased housing supply, measured as the number of objects on sale. The zero effect of immigration on housing prices stands in contrast to the negative results found in earlier studies. We hypothesize that the reason is due to different preferences for homogeneity in Sweden, and/or to institutional features in the Swedish rental sector.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Immigration

Refugees

Housing market

Housing prices

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)