Closed Doors Everywhere? A Meta-Analysis of Field Experiments on Ethnic Discrimination in Rental Housing Markets

Discrimination is long seen as a meaningful factor for ethnic inequalities on rental housing markets. Yet empirically, the extent of discrimination is still debatable. For the first time, this article provides a quantitative meta-analysis of 71 experimental studies (in person audits and correspondence tests) that were run over the last four decades in the United States, Canada and Europe. Special focus is given to a possible inflation of effect sizes by publication bias; to time trends; and to evidence for statistical discrimination. Taken together, nearly all experiments document the occurrence of ethnic discrimination. Although the effect sizes are inflated by publication bias, there is still substantial evidence left once this the bias is removed. <br>