In this paper, I along with Hermish Mehta and Edward Chang explore how the legacy of racial discrimination persists in modern housing markets. In particular, we attempt to understand whether and how racial composition affects free-market property values, holding other potentially relevant factors constant. In so doing, we challenge the common thesis that the free markets function as a race-blind instrument that automatically counters racial segregation.
Since housing markets vary drastically between cities due to different local and state regulations, we concentrate on a single cosmopolitan city: Boston, MA. We restrict ourselves to examining how race plays a role in determining house values in the city and its suburbs. To that end, we consider the Boston Housing Dataset, which contains information collected by the US Census Service in 1970.
For further details, please refer to ProjectReport.pdf. Project code is available in the appendix.