Immigration and house prices under various labour market structures in England and Wales

Abstract

AbstractThis article estimates the impact of immigration on local house prices under various local labour market structures in England and Wales. Typically, for the nation as a whole, newly arriving immigrants add to the overall housing demand; this would in general push up house prices when facing an upward-sloping supply curve. However, sorting and native-outmigration response to immigration may change the dynamics and impact at the ‘local’ level, depressing house prices through income change. We use data on England and Wales to investigate the local house price effect of immigration when taking into account the local labour market structure of the areas, particularly with respect to employment density and average socioeconomic profile (skill) of workers. We found that in high density of employment areas but with a majority of the occupations in low skill sets, there is a negative house price effect led by immigrant inflows, and this might be due to a type of tenure ‘downgrade’ in the area as immigrants increase the rate of free renting. Free renters are less likely to participate in the housing market themselves and an increase in the rate of this form of tenure could also reduce their mobility further, hence lead to lower levels of housing stock turnover and transaction-related renovation; as a result, both housing quality and house prices fall. The evidence is in addition to the native flight argument typically found in the literature to explain house price depreciation led by immigration. 摘要本文估算了在英格兰和威尔士当地各种劳动力市场结构下移民对当地房价的影响。通常情况下，对于整个国家来说，新移民增加了整体住房需求；在面临向上倾斜的供应曲线时，这通常会推高房价。然而，对移民的分类和本地居民外移的反应可能会改变“地方”层面的动态和影响，通过收入变化压低房价。我们使用英格兰和威尔士的数据，在考虑到当地经济结构（特别是就业密度和工人的平均社会经济状况和技能）的前提下，调查移民对当地房价的影响。我们发现，在就业密度高、但大部分职业都是低技能组合执业的区域，移民流入对房价产生了负面影响，这可能是由于移民提高了免租居住和非法占用的比率，导致该地区的某种占有“降级”。免费居住者自己不太可能参与住房市场，这种占有形式的增加也可能进一步降低他们的流动性，从而导致住房存量周转率降低和交易相关的翻新减少，从而住房质量和房价都下降。除了各种文献中通常谈及的本地人逃离之外，这也是移民带来房价贬值的一个原因。