Is ethnic segregation in Europe driven by native flight or immigrant self-isolation? If the former, which natives avoid immigrants? Which immigrants? What is the geographic scope of homophilic residential preferences? We answer these questions using a matched panel containing the universe of individuals and properties in Denmark from 1987 through 2017. We take advantage of the quasi-random nature of refugee placements and simulated exogenous Markov-chain predictions to generate experimental variation regarding local immigrant arrivals. We find strong evidence of native flight, even at the building level. Flight is stronger among the old and a reaction to the arrival of low-income immigrants. As neighborhoods become more immigrant-dense, housing prices decline, and subsequent move-ins are more likely to be other immigrants or young, low-income native citizens without children.

Research about Hispanics by economists has focused on the assimilation—or lack thereof—of recent immigrants. However, the earliest continued colonial settlement of the USA was Hispanic. This project proposes to study this heritage as a deeply rooted, all-American economic phenomenon.