Institutional and Technological Determinants of Rural Housing and In-Migration

1. For the first time in almost a decade, U.S. rural population is growing due to in-migration from urban areas 2. As a result, identifying features of migrators, rural housing and rental markets, and rural policies are increasingly important to the health and well-being of rural communities 3. This is especially important for AIAN and Hispanic rural residents, as they disproportionately suffer from severe housing problems 4. Historically, there is a lack of rural housing research in economics and related disciplines due to data constraints 5. Using microdata we have obtained from an already approved FSRDC project, we will (1) identify housing and rental market characteristics; and (2) attempt to quantify the impact of rural housing and broadband policies on in-migration, focusing on the distributional effects across income, race, and proximity to metropolitan areas.