Data and Code for: How Regional Inequality and Migration Drive Housing Prices and Rents
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Gregory Howard, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Jack Liebersohn, University of California, Irvine
Version: View help for Version V1
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Project Citation:
Howard, Gregory, and Liebersohn, Jack. Data and Code for: How Regional Inequality and Migration Drive Housing Prices and Rents. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2025. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-08-06. https://doi.org/10.3886/E230944V1
Project Description
Summary:
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For several decades after World War II,
regional incomes converged within the United States, but in recent decades,
this trend has stopped and even reversed. Instead, more recent income
growth—and the economic opportunities that come with it—has been increasingly
concentrated in a small number of cities. From 2000 to 2018, median household
incomes increased by about 15 percent more in cities that were already in the
top 10 percent as compared to cities that were initially in the bottom half.
During this time, the FHFA house price index rose by 31 percentage points more
than the consumer price index (CPI). This increase is unevenly distributed, and
driven in large part by the higher rate of housing price increases in major
cities. Relative to CPI, house prices rose by 49 percentage points in New York,
96 percentage points in Seattle, 129 percentage points in Los Angeles, and 113
percentage points in Miami. Our
essay argues that this is no coincidence: the workhorse model of urban
economics predicts that an increase in regional inequality leads to higher
average national housing rents and prices, and the data support this theory.
Scope of Project
Subject Terms:
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Housing;
rent;
migration
JEL Classification:
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O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
Geographic Coverage:
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United States
Time Period(s):
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2000 – 2018
Data Type(s):
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census/enumeration data;
geographic information system (GIS) data
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