Highly skilled immigrants and local housing prices: Evidence from the H-1B visa lottery

Abstract

This study explores the extent to which highly skilled immigrants affect local housing prices by exploiting exogenous inflow of highly skilled immigrants to an area through the H-1B visa lottery program. Our results suggest that an influx of highly skilled and high-income immigrants increases the demand for housing. Specifically, our findings show that greater inflow of highly skilled immigrants leads to higher local housing price appreciation. This positive relationship between the influx of highly skilled immigrants and housing price appreciation is stronger in areas with faster overall population growth and in areas with inelastic land supply. However, additional findings show that the inflow of highly skilled workers does not significantly affect local rent prices.

Emily Kim

Ph.D. Candidate in Finance

My research interests cover a variety of topics on empirical corporate finance including information dissemination, innovation, initial public offerings, social finance, and labor economics.