Immigration and Housing Rents: Short‐Run Effects of the 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany
We study the impact of the 2015 mass arrival of refugees in Germany on housing rents. Using data on county‐level refugeepopulations and offers of flats for rent from Germany's leading online property broker ImmobilienScout24, we find strong androbust evidence in DiD and IV regressions that refugee immigration adversely affected rental price growth. Additional ex-plorations into native (German) mobility responses, related housing market metrics, and regional effect heterogeneity byprevalence of anti‐refugee crimes, crimes against natives involving refugee suspects, neighborhood (1 km grid) characteristics,and local exposure to different types of refugee housing suggest that perceptions of refugee immigration as a (source of)disamenity are major drivers of our findings.
Kürschner Rauck, K. and M. Kvasnicka (2025), Immigration and Housing Rents: Short‐Run Effects of the 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany. Journal of Regional Science (forthcoming)
DOI: 10.1111/jors.70002