Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/246791 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 21-08
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
How does housing policy influence the distribution of population? We examine the impact of the world's first large-scale rural public housing scheme on the long-term dynamics of rural population, specifically the case of Ireland's Labourers Acts. We link detailed data on the location of over 45,000 heavily subsidized cottages for agricultural laborers built 1883-1915 in over 200 districts to decennial Censuses between 1841 and 2002. We examine how the density of this social housing, which effectively halved rents for landless laborers, affected subsequent population change and find significant persistence in the effect of this treatment on the population. These findings are from specifications that include other factors plausibly related to future population growth, including initial housing stock, land values and population density, as well as distance to urban centres. A causal interpretation is supported by an assessment of pre-trends, by no effect of cottages authorized but not built and by an IV approach that exploits a 1906 limit on legal costs. Our findings suggest that deep housing policy interventions can have longlasting effects on population distribution.
Subjects: 
Ireland
Labourers Acts
population growth
social housing
migration
JEL: 
N34
N94
O18
R23
R38
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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