Electoral Chairs’ Seminars – October 26th

Housing Prices and Perceived Economic Standing: Evidence from Two Survey Experiments

Alexandra Jabbour – Phd Student at Université de Montréal

Housing is a good marker of economic standing since individuals usually sort into neighbourhoods based on their financial capacity. The aim of this study is to test whether individuals actually react to property prices and re-evaluate their financial capacity according to the market. This assumption, despite being present in many articles about the political consequences of housing prices, has not been directly tested. By means of two experiments conducted in Canada and the United States, wherein tenants and owners were randomly informed about current housing prices in their neighbourhoods, I provide evidence that exposure to reminders of economic disparities affect the feeling of economic downgrading among tenants but not among owners. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the political consequences of housing prices, especially with regard to the economic anxiety it may generate and for whom.

This content has been updated on 20 October 2022 at 8 h 50 min.