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arXiv · 2609.21478

Bricks or Cash? Externalities of Housing Upgrading in High-density Cities

Sumit Agarwal·Ying Deng·Yi Fan·Qi Gao·Jing Li·Lin Ma
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Abstract

We estimate housing externalities in a high-density city, exploiting the staggered rollout of Singapore's nationwide Main Upgrading Programme for public housing. Controlling for nonrandom neighborhood exposure, we find that upgrading raises treated buildings' prices by 11.5% upon completion and neighboring buildings' resale prices by about 2% within 500 meters, decaying to zero beyond. A model with distance-decaying externalities shows that in dense settings spillovers justify the distortions of in-kind provision; this advantage diminishes and reverses at lower densities. Administrative data on over 2 million residents show that upgrading disproportionately retains older incumbents, suggesting age-specific amenities as an underexplored externality channel.

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Sumit Agarwal, Ying Deng, Yi Fan, Qi Gao, Jing Li, Lin Ma. 2026-09-18. Bricks or Cash? Externalities of Housing Upgrading in High-density Cities. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21478

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