Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Moises Yi Humanities and Social Science

The Economic Impact of Immigrants: Housing Prices and Distributional Effects

This project will deal with the economic implications of the most recent waves of immigration to the U.S. (1970-2000). Specifically, this study will focus on the impact on housing prices immigrants have by looking at the evolution of real estate prices in the 40 cities with the highest immigration rates in the country. During this summer, I will work on gathering and processing data from the U.S. Census. I will also work on developing an appropriate model to use as the basis of my empirical approach, as well as for the regressions I plan to carry. A considerable amount of time will be spent developing appropriate controls to make sure my regression estimations are not biased. Regression estimations will be undertaken by the end of the summer if time permits.

Message To Sponsor

As an immigrant myself, I have always been interested in immigrant related issues. Although I have done previous research on the subject, I was not able to do the projects I truly wanted because I had not taken the proper upper division classes required to do rigorous economic research. Now that I do, I am really excited about this research opportunity. Being allowed to spend a summer solely working on my project will allow me to have a project that will be more deep and larger in scope than previous ones. And this will give me, I believe, the chance to truly experience what economic research is all about (which is important to me since I am planning to apply to graduate schools next year).