How does immigration affect housing costs in Switzerland?

Helfer, Fabienne; Grossmann, Volker; Osikominu, Aderonke

doi:10.1186/s41937-023-00110-1

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics

Table 9 House prices and immigration—MS-regions from 1985–2016: Sensitivity analysis.

From: How does immigration affect housing costs in Switzerland?

	Baseline	Major reg. FE	One year lag	3-year diff.	Net mig.	\(\leqslant 20\%\) sec. homes
	(1)	\((2)^{1}\)	(3)	\((4)^{2}\)	\((5)^{3}\)	\((6)^{4}\)
OLS regressions
Dep. var.: \(\Delta \, \text {ln} \, HP_{it}\)
\(\beta _1\)	0.449*	0.422*	0.550*	0.265	0.102	0.147
	[0.076]	[0.096]	[0.064]	[0.332]	[0.637]	[0.652]
\(\beta _2\)	0.865**	0.851**	0.723*	1.477***	1.162***	1.461**
	[0.030]	[0.034]	[0.084]	[0.001]	[0.000]	[0.014]
Dep. var.: \(\Delta \, \text {ln} \, AP_{it}\)
\(\beta _1\)	0.269	0.301	0.315	0.193	0.187	0.038
	[0.266]	[0.216]	[0.212]	[0.471]	[0.306]	[0.887]
\(\beta _2\)	1.251***	1.254***	1.352***	1.666***	1.310***	1.659***
	[0.001]	[0.001]	[0.000]	[0.000]	[0.000]	[0.001]
IV regressions
Dep. var.: \(\Delta \, \text {ln} \, HP_{it}\)
\(\beta _1\)	− 2.589***	− 2.736***	− 2.421**	− 2.748***	− 2.093***	− 1.987**
	[0.008]	[0.008]	[0.014]	[0.008]	[0.005]	[0.047]
\(\beta _2\)	6.907***	7.614***	5.921***	7.149***	3.872***	7.254***
	[0.000]	[0.001]	[0.001]	[0.000]	[0.000]	[0.007]
Dep. var.: \(\Delta \, \text {ln} \, AP_{it}\)
\(\beta _1\)	0.478	0.934	− 0.229	0.646	0.402	0.065
	[0.473]	[0.346]	[0.738]	[0.396]	[0.445]	[0.926]
\(\beta _2\)	5.388***	6.721***	5.350***	4.945**	2.014***	6.657**
	[0.004]	[0.007]	[0.001]	[0.013]	[0.002]	[0.012]
\(Obs\)	3279	3279	3279	3067	3279	2318
K-P F-stat	5.60	4.93	5.87	5.91	14.87	2.22
S-W F-stat, immigration	11.41	14.63	12.06	14.83	31.97	20.02
S-W F-stat, interaction	13.25	13.25	14.44	14.32	47.67	20.47

p values in brackets. Standard errors are clustered by MS-regions. The regressions are run at the MS-regional level for the period from 1985–2016. \(\Delta\) indicates first differences. \(\beta _1\) is the estimated coefficient on the annual immigration (\(\Delta I_{it}\)) relative to the initial population size (\(Pop_{it-1}\)). \(\beta _2\) is the coefficient on the interaction of \(\Delta I_{it} / Pop_{it-1}\) with \({\textbf {1}} (t \ge 2002)\). All regressions include year fixed effects and the annual change in the unemployment rate lagged by one year as a control variable. The instrument is the change in the predicted stock of foreigners divided by initial population. The stock of foreigners is predicted by the settlement pattern of immigrants in 1980. In columns 3, the instrument is likewise lagged by one year. The K-P F-stat is the Kleibergen-Paap rk Wald F-statistic. The S-W F-stat is the Sanderson and Windmeijer (2016) multivariate F-test of excluded instruments for weak identification of each endogenous regressor separately; immigration and interaction refer to endogenous regressors \(\Delta I_{it}/Pop_{it-1}\) and \(\Delta I_{it}/Pop_{it-1} \times {\textbf {1}} (t \ge 2002)\), respectively
\(^{1}\) Column 2 additionally includes fixed effects for major regions
\(^{2}\) In column 4, a 3-year difference is applied to all variables, e.g.: \(\text {ln} \, HP_{it} - \text {ln} \, HP_{it-3}\) or \((I_{it} - I_{it-3})/Pop_{it-3}\)
\(^{3}\) In column 5, international net migration of foreigners is used instead of the annual change in the stock of foreigners to measure \(\Delta I_{it}\)
\(^{4}\) In column 6, only MS-regions with a share of second homes of 20% or less are considered for the estimation
Significance levels: \(^{*}\) \(p<0.10\), \(^{**}\) \(p<0.05\), \(^{***}\) \(p<0.01\)

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