Do Foreigners Pay Higher Rents for the Same Quality of Housing in Geneva and Zurich?
Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics Vol. 144, No. 4, pp. 703-730, 2008
28 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2011
Date Written: July 4, 2007
Abstract
The Geneva and Zurich housing markets are characterized by high proportions of foreigners and a large share of rental housing. This provides ideal conditions for testing whether foreigners pay more for the same quality of housing than Swiss households and whether flats in neighborhoods with higher proportions of foreigners rent at a discount. Hedonic price equations using a rich dataset on dwellings and their occupants yield evidence of such discrimination and prejudice. They also suggest more complex relationships between tenant nationality, housing and neighborhood quality, and rents.
Keywords: price discrimination, rental housing market, segregation, switzerland
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