On 17th June, 2011, Paramita Dhar defended her dissertation entitled “Essays on the Economics of Housing” under the supervision of Prof. Stephen L. Ross. Paramita’s dissertation examined two different questions about housing and location choice. In her first essay, she analyzed the impact of school quality on property values using a differences-in-differences strategy. In the other two essays of her dissertation, she focused on the issue of discrimination against minority homebuyers that might lead to the segregation of neighborhoods. In both of these essays she used fair housing audit data from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study on three large minority groups in Los Angeles to examine the causes of spatial variation of the nature of discrimination.
This fall, Paramita will be heading to Central Connecticut State University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Economics.