Abstract
This study investigates the effects of immigration on residential land prices in urban Tokyo. A rapid increase in immigrants in Tokyo raises the concern that immigration may depreciate land prices because of the negative image emerging from the perception that some immigrants might create disharmony in society. However, our analysis denies this possibility; for every 1% increase in immigrant ratio (i.e., the proportion of immigrants in the total population), the residential land prices increase by 12%. Although the literature explains that a negative immigration effect occurs when the analysis uses small geographic units, the results suggest that even a positive effect can occur under small geographic units. The implications of the current results are complicated. While the concern of immigration-induced land price depreciation is unfounded, this raises another concern—that of asset inequality between land owners and tenants.
Funding source: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Award Identifier / Grant number: 16K03650
Award Identifier / Grant number: 21K01506
Acknowledgements
I appreciate Yuchen Lu for his research assistance and Editage (www.editage.com) for helping with English language editing.
-
Research funding: This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 16K03650; 21K01506).
Fixed effect model under the standard least squares approach
| Immigrant ratio | 0.079*** |
| 0.014 | |
| Crime per capita | −8.455*** |
| 1.341 | |
| Population density | 1.E-04*** |
| 1.E-05 | |
| Local tax liability per capita | 0.147 |
| 0.112 | |
| Constant | 9.043*** |
| 1.318 | |
| Number of observations | 207 |
-
***Statistically significant at 1% level.
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