Research Seminars @ Illinois

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Tailored for undergraduate researchers, this calendar is a curated list of research seminars at the University of Illinois. Explore the diverse world of research and expand your knowledge through engaging sessions designed to inspire and enlighten.

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Speaker Sebastian Box-Couillard - Do Minorities Pay More to Avoid Flood Risk?

Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor: Practice Job Talk - PERE (Program in Environmental & Resource Economics)
Location: 426 Mumford Hall
Date: Oct 14, 2024 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Speaker: Sebastien Box-Couillard, PhD Student, UIUC Dept. ACE
Views: 12
Originating Calendar: ACE Seminars; Abstract
Persons of color are more likely to live in high flood risk areas. African American and Hispanic individuals also pay significantly more than whites for equivalent housing, and there is significant spatial heterogeneity in these differentials. Do racial housing price differentials vary in ways that could incentivize persons of color to live in high flood risk areas? What factors exacerbate or alleviate differentials in safe versus risky areas? I assemble a dataset combining a panel of 26M repeat-sales housing transactions, buyer race, and flood zone changes between 2000-2020 across the United States. I identify price differentials by race and flood zone status using a repeat-sales model and plausibly exogenous changes in flood zone status at the property-level. I find that, while persons of color pay over 3% more than white buyers for equivalent housing outside flood zones, these premiums are reduced to approximately 1% inside flood zones. Where flood risk is most salient and supply of safe housing is lowest, premiums for Black and Hispanic buyers to live in safe areas are highest, reaching approximately 5%. Using variation in the supply of safe housing at the county-level, I find that all buyers pay a premium for safe housing in counties with large shares of unsafe housing. However, Black and Hispanic buyers face double the price premium of an equivalent white buyer in such counties. As climate change continues to make more areas vulnerable to natural disasters, access to safe housing for minorities may be further restricted, reinforcing inequality. Flood mapping as is currently designed in the United States may contribute to environmental injustice.

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