Better Residential than Ethnic Discrimination! Reconciling Audit's Findings and Interviews' Findings in the Parisian Housing Market

Abstract

This article investigates discrimination and the interplay of residential and ethnic stigma on the French housing market using two different methods, paired-testing audit study of real estate agencies and face-to-face interviews with real estate agents. The juxtaposition of their findings leads to a paradox: interviews reveal high levels of ethnic discrimination but little to none residential discrimination, while the audit study shows that living in deprived suburbs is associated with a lower probability of obtaining an appointment for a housing vacancy but ethnic origin (signaled by the candidate’s name) has no significant discriminatory effect. We have three priors potentially consistent with this apparent paradox and re-evaluate their likelihood in light of these findings: (i) agents make use of any statistical information about insolvency, including residency; (ii) there are two distinct and independent taste discriminations, one about space and one about ethnicity; (iii) these two dimensions exist and complement each other.

Keywords: Discrimination, Neighborhood Effects, Housing Market

JEL Classification: J71, R23