Measuring Housing Discrimination in a National Study Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Paired Testing and the 2000 Housing Discrimination Survey
Appendix A: Paired Testing and the 2000 Housing Discrimination Survey
Pages 49-66
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From page 49... ...
A primary motivation for the conduct of this workshop was to examine methodological issues surrounding the use of newspaper advertisements for initiating tests. This methodology was used in the 1989 Housing Discrimination Study (HDS)
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From page 50... ...
For example, if real estate agents steer minority home buyers away from discriminatory lenders, a paired test of the mortgage market will not capture the mitigating effect of this behavior. In addition, paired testing will not uncover the existence of adverse impact discrimination in a given market.
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From page 51... ...
Likewise, the testing protocol, which required testers to walk into a real estate agency and refer to an advertisement they had found in the newspaper, may not resemble the approach followed by most consumers when entering the housing market. Second, testers are sampled in a nonrandom manner based on a hiring process, which may lead to systematic differences between the population of white and minority testers.
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From page 52... ...
If these behavioral differences between firms are not justified by business necessity, the observed racial differences would be described as adverse impact discrimination. However, the behavioral differences may arise because the firms operate in different market segments and therefore represent legitimate business practices, in which case the observed racial differences in the market should not be classified as discrimination.
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From page 53... ...
The gross measure is likely to include differences in treatment that arise simply because the testers' visits differed in some unobserved way, and it may therefore overstate discrimination. The net measure is intended to correct for this problem by subtracting instances in which the white tester experiences adverse treatment relative to the minority tester.
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From page 54... ...
Alternatively, additional information concerning each test might be used to uncover the extent of discrimination experienced in a sample of tests. For example, in the housing market, information may be available concerning whether the white ancl minority testers saw the same agent cluring their visits or whether the advertised unit was in a neighborhood with a large percentage of minority resiclents.
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From page 55... ...
Unobservable differences between the two testers' visits are likely to decrease the correlation between the treatments and increase the predicted probability of adverse treatment of the minority tester relative to the white tester the gross measure. Ondrich et al.
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From page 56... ...
The testers were then sent to the advertising agency to inquire about the advertised unit and request to see it and any other similar available housing. The 1989 HDS was designed to measure the national incidence of discrimination arising during visits by qualified home seekers to a sample of units advertised for sale or rent in major metropolitan area newspapers across the United States.
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From page 57... ...
In each of these sites, approximately 150 paired tests were conducted, based on random samples of job openings advertised in the major metropolitan newspapers. A similar study of hiring discrimination against African American men was conducted a year later in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
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From page 58... ...
The 1999 Homeownership Testing Project is a pilot study of discrimination in the pre-application phase of the mortgage market. This testing effort includes tests for African Americans and Hispanics in two major metropolitan areas.
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From page 59... ...
2000 HOUSING DISCRIMINATION STUDY: PHASE I Basic Structure of Study Phase I of the 2000 HDS is designed to study discrimination in both rental and sales housing markets against African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. The study will provide estimates of the national incidence and severity of discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics in medium-sized and large metropolitan area housing markets.
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From page 60... ...
The real estate sections of the Sunday newspapers for all sites are shipped to the Urban Institute every Sunday. A site must be sampled within a couple of hours of receipt so the sample can be relayed back to the local fair housing group for testing in a timely fashion.
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From page 61... ...
Finally, the advertisement itself may not clearly identify whether a housing unit is eligible so that the eligibility criteria are applied by the local testing agency on the basis of information gathered on site. The sampling team at the Urban Institute draws substantially more advertisements than the number of tests planned in case some are determined to be ineligible by local testing agencies.
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From page 62... ...
To generate confidence intervals, statistical analysis will be conducted for the gross measures and hypothesis tests for the net measures using the sample weights. The standard errors of estimates will be adjusted to account for the complex sampling design; see Kish (1965)
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From page 63... ...
Limitations of and Alternatives to Random Sampling of Advertisements While the use of a sample of advertisements offers many advantages, there are a number of disadvantages associated with this sampling strategy. First, the units advertised in the newspaper may not accurately represent the population of available housing units.
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From page 64... ...
As discussed earlier, it can be quite difficult to compile a complete, nonduplicative list of rental or sales real estate agents, and nearly impossible to obtain any measure of volume for these agents. Finally, attempts might be made to sample available units.
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From page 65... ...
Specifically, the populations of white and minority testers may differ systematically on characteristics that influence treatment. If so, the net and gross measures capture a combination of discrimination and the effect of racial differences in unobserved tester characteristics.
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From page 66... ...
Urban Institute Monograph Series on Race and Discrimination. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
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