Counterfactual Dissimilarity: Can Changes in Demographics and Income Explain Increased Racial Integration in U.S. Cities?

March 2021

Paul E. Carrillo (George Washington University)
Jonathan L. Rothbaum (U.S. Census Bureau)

IIEP working paper 2021-10

Abstract: Urban areas in the U.S. have experienced important changes in racial/ethnic distributions over the last two decades. In the average urban area today black-white racial integration has increased by 10.6 percent between 1990 and 2010. Changes in racial and ethnic distributions and gentrification are often associated with changes in residents’ demographic characteristics, such as income, education and age. This paper applies a non-parametric spatial decomposition technique using complete (restricted-use) microdata files from the 1990 Decennial Long Form Census and 2008-2012 American Community Surveys to assess what portion of the changes in racial distributions can be attributed to changes in individual characteristics. We find that that, on average, a little over a third of the observed increase in integration can be accounted for by changes in observed individual characteristics.

JEL Codes: C14, R23, R30

Key Words: Counterfactual Distribution, Decomposition, Spatial Econometrics

What Do Hedonic House Price Estimates Tell Us When CAP Rates Vary?

February 2022

Paul E. Carrillo and Anthony Yezer

IIEP working paper 2021-03

Abstract: This paper demonstrates theoretically and empirically that estimated implicit prices from hedonic equations using house value do not reflect implicit willingness to pay for housing attributes unless very strong conditions are present. The argument is simple. Implicit prices obtained from rental hedonics, consistent with theory, can potentially be used to reveal the willingness to pay for current housing services. Therefore hedonic equations relating asset prices to current characteristics only reveal willingness to pay for structure and neighborhood services if cap rates (rent to value ratios) are constant. In some cases, the sign of the bias inherent in using asset rather than rental prices can be anticipated. Some rules and tests for situations where cap rates are constant are developed. At a minimum some of these checks for variation in cap rates should be implemented before using asset price hedonics to measure the current flow of housing services.

Key Words: Hedonic models, implicit markets, capitalization rate, environmental valuation