TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Chakrabarti, Ritashree
AU  - Zhang, Junfu
        TI  - Unaffordable Housing and Local Employment Growth: Evidence from California Municipalities
        PY  - 2014/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 8122
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp8122
        AB  - It is widely believed that unaffordable housing could drive businesses away and thus impede job growth. However, there is little evidence to support this view. This paper presents a simple model to clarify how housing affordability is linked to employment growth and why unaffordable housing could negatively affect employment growth. The paper then investigates this effect empirically using data on California municipalities. For various reasons, a simple correlation between unaffordable housing and employment growth cannot be interpreted as causal. Several empirical strategies are employed to identify the causal effect of unaffordable housing on employment growth. The estimation results provide consistent evidence that unaffordable housing indeed slows local employment growth. Policy implications of these findings are briefly discussed.
        KW  - housing affordability
KW  - employment growth
KW  - amenity
KW  - California
        ER  -