Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Moving Beyond Measuring Discrimination: Expanding the Role of Housing Audit Studies to Better Inform Policy

(Housing and Community Development)

Discrimination in housing markets continues to constrain the locational choice of many households in the United States. Evidence from recent in-person and correspondence field experiments finds African American, Latino, Muslim, Disabled and other subgroups of the population are systematically shown fewer units or simply denied access to housing. This panel explores discriminatory behavior in both rental and mortgage markets across the United States. At the foundation of each paper is an audit study. The panelists, however, go well beyond identifying differential treatment and leverage the audit framework to identify key insights that inform policy. The broader discussion thus seeks to provide guidance to policymakers about the role that fair housing law can and does play in resolving discriminatory behavior. Moore’s paper is the first known study to conduct a large-scale, multi-site test of differential treatment for applicants using Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) to help pay for private housing. Varying by race and voucher use, the research asks whether landlords respond differently to applicants disclosing use of a voucher than to those who do not disclose the use of vouchers. Of particular interest to policy is that each of the fourteen metropolitan areas selected differ in terms of the state and local Source of Income protections they have in place. Understanding how results vary across cities can thus inform whether some policies are more effective than others. Hanson, Hawley and Martin’s paper builds on an industry-wide field experiment of mortgage lenders that identifies differential treatment of minorities. By matching the field experiment data to loan-level borrower transactions in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, the authors are able to examine how differential treatment of minority borrowers at the lender-level affects minority borrowing outcomes (i.e. approval rates, loan price). Bringing these data together enables the authors to provide important evidence about whether differences in treatment of minorities can be improved by altering the underlying characteristics of borrowers or through better enforcement of fair-lending standards. Finally, Murchie’s paper examines the impact that awareness of Fair Housing Law has on landlord practices. The experiment creates a treatment group of randomly assigned online rental housing advertisements to send an informational email about fair housing law. A correspondence audit varying applicant info by protected class (i.e. race, family status, etc.) is then conducted comparing the group of posts receiving the fair housing email (treated) with a randomly selected group that did not receive treatment (control). This study thus aims to provide insight about the impact that awareness of fair housing law has on discrimination, as well as the effectiveness of disseminating fair housing law via email. Together, these three papers provide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with important insights about the extent of housing discrimination across race and class. Further, they offer examples of how the most commonly used methods of testing can be leveraged to inform which policy levers should be employed to ensure all households have an equal opportunity in choosing where to live.