Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2026)

2026 8th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2026)

📍Beijing, China🗓️ 12-14 June 2026
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Decomposing the Renter Affordability Gap Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Income versus Rent Contributions, 2019–2025

Authors
Shuyi Zhang1, 2, *
1New York, NY, USA
2M.S. in Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA
*Corresponding author. Email: sz484@cornell.edu
Corresponding Author
Shuyi Zhang
Available Online 30 September 2026.
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_19How to use a DOI?
Keywords
housing affordability; rent burden; metropolitan areas; decomposition; supply elasticity
Abstract

U.S. rental affordability deteriorated sharply after 2019 and partially reversed in some markets after 2022. The Sun Belt rent decline is well documented in industry data; what has not been measured is how much rent versus income each contributes to the metro-level burden change. We apply a log-additive decomposition, Δlog(burden) ≡ Δlog(rent) − Δlog(income), to a balanced panel of 14 U.S. metropolitan areas observed annually from 2019 through 2025, with bootstrap, jackknife, and permutation inference. Over the full 2019–2024 window the income side accounts for most of the change in every supply group. In the 2022–2024 post-surge window the rent-side contribution flips sign: positive in supply-constrained coastal metros (+0.036, 95% CI [+0.021, +0.052]) and negative in high-supply Sun Belt metros (−0.025, [−0.046, −0.011]; permutation p = 0.005). Even within the Sun Belt the income side is roughly four times larger in magnitude than the rent side (−0.096 vs. −0.025), so rent moderation distinguishes regimes but is not the larger force in either. The reversal appears in CoStar asking rent but not yet in ACS gross rent; cross-correlation places the peak transmission lag at one year (Pearson r = 0.76, p < .001).

Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2026)
Series
Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research
Publication Date
30 September 2026
ISBN
978-94-6239-777-4
ISSN
2352-5428
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_19How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Shuyi Zhang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
TI  - Decomposing the Renter Affordability Gap Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Income versus Rent Contributions, 2019–2025
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 162
EP  - 168
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_19
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_19
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -