Speaker: Maggie Hu (CUNY)

Paper Title: Paying More for Less: Racial Disparities in Rental Housing Quality (Joint with Yirui Jiang, Yildiray Yildirim)

Date: Wednesday 1st/April/2026 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time

Abstract:  Racial disparities in housing quality persist despite regulatory efforts to promote equity. Leveraging microdata from the 2002-2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (NYCHVS), we construct a Housing Quality Index (HQI) that captures structural and environmental conditions. We find that minority renters face substantial disadvantages, receiving 4.2% lower housing quality per rent dollar than white tenants, even after controlling for household, unit, and neighborhood characteristics. To establish causality, we exploit the 2006 421-a Exclusion Zone reform and ZIP code level racial composition as instruments, and document significant declines in minority tenants’ housing quality following the reform. We then examine rent stabilization programs and find they reduce the racial quality gap by 16.7% in the low rent segment. However, there is evidence of selective landlord neglect: minority tenants in stabilized units face 2.6% more unresolved housing code violations, based on NYC Housing Maintenance Code (HMC) data. Notably, the racial quality gap narrows among policy-aware nonwhite renters, who enjoy 1.6% higher housing quality per dollar of rent when correctly identifying their unit’s regulatory status, suggesting that information asymmetries sustain housing inequalities. The findings demonstrate the joint role of regulation, landlord incentives, and tenant awareness in disparities, highlighting the need for policies combining rent regulation with stronger enforcement and improved tenant education.

Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QkfUq11JQbi20ulZdgYYog#/registration