Javiera Selman

Assistant Professor

department of Economics, University of Chile

My fields are urban and public economics, with a special interest in behavioral economics.

You can contact me at jselman@fen.uchile.cl

Download my CV here

Working Papers

  • Information Frictions in Rental Voucher Programs: Experimental Evidence from Chile

    with Pablo Celhay

  • “Rental Voucher Programs in Middle Income Countries: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Chile”

  • “Neighborhood spillovers in rental voucher program participation: Evidence from Chile”

    with Bárbara Flores

Selected Publications

Work in Progress

  • Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Mortgage Lending

    with Patrick Button, David Schwegman, Hussain Hadah, Catherine Balfe, and Tran Nguyen-Phuong

    This research uses an email correspondence experiment to test if mortgage loan originators discriminate against married spouses based on their sexual orientation and race (African American vs. white). We send emails requesting information about home loans to licensed mortgage loan originators (MLOs) in the United States. The emails come from fictitious married couples who are either same-gender female, same-gender male or different-gender, and either both have white-sounding names, or both have African American names. We test for differential treatment by MLOs by comparing response quality and response rates. We will then test for statistical discrimination and other explanatory factors by determining how discrimination varies by factors such as credit scores, local demographics and social attitudes, discrimination laws, and MLO characteristics.

    In the field 2024-2025.

  • Administrative Barriers in Rental Voucher Programs: Experimental Evidence From Chile

    with Pablo Celhay

    This research project develops an online platform to randomly vary information for local housing officials in Chile to uncover administrative barriers hindering rental voucher utilization.

    In the field 2024-2025