Do immigrants equally benefit from rent control?

Abstract

This study examines how immigrants, often concentrated in urban areas with higher rent burdens, benefit from rent control. We focus on New York City's rent stabilization policy, using data from 2002 to 2017. We find that immigrant tenants are more likely to live in rent-stabilized units than nonimmigrant tenants. However, conditional on living in rent-stabilized units, immigrants receive $151 less monthly rent discounts than their nonimmigrant counterparts. This notable immigrant–native gap is economically and statistically significant and robust to various checks. Factors like spatial sorting, tenancy duration, policy awareness, and property characteristics primarily contribute to this disparity.