The impact of real Estate Market knowledge on tenure choice: A comparison of black and white households

Abstract

Homeownership is an important social and financial achievement for most U.S. households. Various explanations have been offered for the large and persistent gap in the ownership rates of black and white households, but studies have consistently fallen short of identifying all of the causes.

The data we used were derived from a survey of the residents of the Columbus, OH, area. We argue that differences in real estate market knowledge and information affect the tenure choice decisions of black and white households. We estimate a model that is augmented to include a measure of real estate knowledge and find that additional knowledge increases the likelihood of homeownership. This holds even when we account for the endogeneity of such knowledge. We conclude that differences in real estate knowledge contribute to explaining the racial gap in homeownership rates, a finding that can be addressed through public policy interventions such as counseling programs.     

Access to information: An asset for democracy or ammunition for political conflict,or both?

More than twenty‐five years after its adoption, the Access to Information Act has become increasingly a cause for concern among public servants, experts, scientists and the media. This article reviews the evolution of the access‐to‐information regime since the 1980s, the issues that have arisen, the political significance of information in democracy, and the enduring tension between its democratic purpose and strategic value. The article also examines the issues of centralization, control and secrecy within the state apparatus despite continuing calls for transparency. Under Conservative governments since 2006, there has been increased control and conflict over disclosure of information, which have spread to a larger part of the state apparatus. Among those involved in conflicts over information with the Prime Minister's Office are members and officers of Parliament and parliamentary committees.     

Choice,Discrimination, and the Motherhood Penalty

Recent studies have documented substantial penalties associated with motherhood and suggest that discrimination plays an important role in producing them. In this article, I argue that the degree to which motherhood is conceptualized as a choice affects the penalties associated with making this choice. Two methods are employed to evaluate this argument. The first method is an analysis of state differences in the wage penalties for motherhood, in which hierarchical linear modeling is used with data from the 1988–2004 Current Population Survey. The second method is a hiring experiment in a highly controlled setting. The wage analysis shows that, net of the usual individual and state‐level factors that affect wages, mothers are penalized more in states where motherhood is perceived to be a woman's choice. The hiring experiment distinguishes between productivity‐based and discrimination‐based explanations for the penalty and provides strong evidence for a causal relationship between perceptions of choice and discrimination against mothers.