Job Market Paper

"Estimating Ingroup Preferences Using Ethnic Housing Quotas in Singapore." (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Many countries try to promote group integration in areas such as housing, education, immigration and employment. While several studies have focused on the consequences of segregation, there is little work studying the causes of segregation. One potential cause is ingroup preference. This paper estimates ethnic ingroup preferences (taste to interact with ethnic ingroup members) over residential neighborhoods using variation from an ethnic housing quota policy in Singapore. My approach combines policy induced variation akin to a regression discontinuity identification strategy with a structural demand estimation framework à la Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995). I find that all groups have strong preferences to live with at least some other members of their ethnic group. However, the majority group (Chinese) exhibits preferences that are inverted U-shaped so that after a neighborhood reaches 43% Chinese, they would rather add a new neighbor from the other group.