%0 Report
        %A Balkan, Binnur
%A Tok, Elif Ozcan
%A Torun, Huzeyfe
%A Tumen, Semih
        %T Immigration, Housing Rents, and Residential Segregation: Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Turkey
        %D 2018
        %8 2018 Jun
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 11611
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp11611
        %X The massive inflow of Syrian refugees is argued to drastically affect various social and economic outcomes in the hosting countries and regions. In this paper, we use micro-level data to investigate whether the Syrian refugee inflows have affected the market for housing rentals in Turkey. The unexpected arrival of a large number of refugees due to civil conflict in Syria is used to construct a quasi-experimental design. Since the construction of new housing units takes a long time, refugee inflow resembles a positive demand shock to the sector.
We find that the refugee inflows have led to an increase in the rents of higher-quality housing units, while there is no statistically significant effect in the rents of lower-quality units. This finding supports a residential segregation story, which suggests that the refugee wave has increased the demand for native-dominant neighborhoods with better amenities especially among natives. We argue that negative attitudes towards refugees – potentially due to refugee-native conflict along several dimensions – may be generating this result.
        %K Syrian refugees
%K immigration
%K housing rents
%K quasi-experimental design
%K Turkey