Can Urban Indicators Predict Home Price Appreciation? Implications for Redlining Research
检验了常用于红线划定研究中的九个人口普查指标是否与加州房价上涨有稳定关系，发现这些指标并不能一致预测房价变化，质疑了它们在贷款承销模型中的合理性。
Economists commonly control for neighborhood indicators, such as median income, in underwriting models that test for redlining. Many such indicators are highly correlated with neighborhood racial composition and therefore have the capacity to “explain away” the role of race in lending decisions. This paper argues that indicators should be included in models of underwriting only if they affect future home prices, and hence the value of the default option, in a consistent fashion. Testing the effect of nine census variables, taken from two recent redlining papers, on California tract appreciation from 1986 to 1994, a consistent relationship between indicators and home price is not found.