Three essays on the impact of racial preferences on household locational choice

This dissertation consists of three papers that investigate the impact of racial preferences on household locational choice. Of particular interest is how these preferences interact with tastes for other local public goods.; Chapter 2 provides a theoretical analysis of the implications of the interaction of income, preference for racial composition, and preference for environmental quality. A locational equilibrium model is developed in which households have preferences over both racial composition and environmental quality.; The results demonstrate that in the presence of preferences for racial composition, it possible to support, in equilibrium, a distribution that reflects what would traditionally be labeled as environmental injustice. However, this equilibrium is supported independent of the siting of environmental hazards and independent of any form of direct discrimination. It is supported simply by the introduction of racial preferences.; The model and results also highlight the potential significance of population characteristics of neighborhoods within a household's locational choice set. For example, minority groups may be faced with constrained choices such that the regions offer either favorable racial composition or high environmental quality. This constraint may ultimately lead minority households to choose either racial composition or high environmental quality.; This topic of constrained choice sets uncovered in Chapter 2 lead to the empirical research found in Chapters 3 and 4. To achieve this end, I develop a methodology to compare the levels of a given public good across neighborhoods with a high concentration of a given race to all neighborhoods within a given choice set.; Chapter 3 evaluates the choice sets related to various public goods (environment, education, and crime) in California. Chapter 4 geographically broadens the analysis by evaluating 34 of the largest Urbanized Areas (UA) in the U.S.---focusing solely on education. The results demonstrate that Hispanics and Blacks generally face highly constrained choice sets. Alternatively, the choice sets for Asians are generally unconstrained, while Non-Hispanic Whites face favorable choices.