Dr Sofie Waltl publishes new paper on discrimination in the housing market

Dr Sofie Waltl, Assistant Professor of Real Estate, Economics and Finance, has published a new article in Regional Science and Urban Economics.

The article is titled 'Equal price for equal place? Demand-driven racial discrimination in the housing market' and was authored alongside Anthony Lepinteur of the University of Luxembourg and Giorgia Menta of the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research.

The abstract reads as follows:

We presented participants to an online study in Luxembourg with fictitious real-estate advertisements, tasking them to appraise the described properties. A random subset was also shown sellers’ surnames, strongly framed to signal their origins. All else equal, sellers with sub-Saharan African surnames were systematically offered lower prices – amounting to an appraisal penalty of EUR 20,000. This figure is highly heterogeneous and can amount up to around EUR 58,000 for older and low-educated participants. We provide evidence that the appraisal bias likely passes through onto final sales prices and that it may be largely due to statistical rather than taste-based discrimination.