About

Jacob William Faber is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Service in New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and holds a joint appointment in NYU's Sociology Department. He is also a co-founder of the Redlining Lab. His research and teaching focuses on spatial inequality. He leverages observational and experimental methods to study the mechanisms responsible for sorting individuals across space and how the distributions of people by race and class interact with political, social, and ecological systems to create and sustain economic disparities.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Geography
• Economics
• Economic growth
• Demography
• Demographic economics
• Development economics
• Econometrics
• Law
• Statistics
• Market economy
• Mathematics
• Business
• Finance

Selected publications

• Liquid Claims on Illiquid Assets: The Economics of Retail Access to Private Markets

  2026-02-09

  articleSenior author

  Expanding retirement account access to alternative investments requires delivering illiquid returns to small-balance investors without compromising valuation integrity or liquidity. This paper studies the intermediation process using 110 registered interval and tender offer funds (>$100B AUM, 2015-2024) that offer periodic rather than daily repurchases. The performance gap between these vehicles and institutional drawdown peers averages approximately 130 basis points per quarter. A factor decomposition attributes roughly one-third of the gap to fees and a larger share to imperfect replication of the private-market return stream; liquidity buffers (8-15% of NAV) contribute at the margin. The funds hold an average of 76% illiquid assets, but valuations are frequently stale, with 40% of trading days recording zero NAV changes. Approximately 40% of interval funds face excess repurchase demand in a given quarter. Despite aggregate underperformance, retail-held assets generate comparable IRRs to same-vintage institutional peers while distributing significantly more cash, consistent with managers selecting liquid, distribution-friendly assets to satisfy repurchase obligations. The current equilibrium is one where regulatory frameworks permit access, but the structural costs of liquidity provision limit the transmission of the private equity premium to retail portfolios.

  PublisherDOI

• Liquid Claims on Illiquid Assets: The Economics of Retail Access to Private Markets

  SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-02-09

  preprint1st authorCorresponding

  Expanding retirement account access to alternative investments requires delivering illiquid returns to small-balance investors without compromising valuation integrity or liquidity. This paper studies the intermediation process using 110 registered interval and tender offer funds (>$100B AUM, 2015-2024) that offer periodic rather than daily repurchases. The performance gap between these vehicles and institutional drawdown peers averages approximately 130 basis points per quarter. A factor decomposition attributes roughly one-third of the gap to fees and a larger share to imperfect replication of the private-market return stream; liquidity buffers (8-15% of NAV) contribute at the margin. The funds hold an average of 76% illiquid assets, but valuations are frequently stale, with 40% of trading days recording zero NAV changes. Approximately 40% of interval funds face excess repurchase demand in a given quarter. Despite aggregate underperformance, retail-held assets generate comparable IRRs to same-vintage institutional peers while distributing significantly more cash, consistent with managers selecting liquid, distribution-friendly assets to satisfy repurchase obligations. The current equilibrium is one where regulatory frameworks permit access, but the structural costs of liquidity provision limit the transmission of the private equity premium to retail portfolios.

  Publisher

• Still Victimized in a Thousand Ways: Segregation as a Tool for Exploitation in the Twenty-First Century

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2024-02-15 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In the thirty years since Massey and Denton's American Apartheid , sociological scholarship on segregation has proliferated, calling attention to the ways in which the social geography of the United States both drives and is shaped by racial and economic inequality. More recent work has focused on the role that institutional actors play in the reproduction of residential segregation and its disparate impacts on communities of color. In this article, we describe different conceptualizations of segregation and how it has been used as a tool for exclusion and exploitation. We review literature on housing and institutional marginalization, highlighting the historical and contemporary mechanisms that perpetuate inequality and necessitate continued research on this topic. We conclude with a discussion of additional considerations and opportunities for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• Who Pays for Flooding? Local Flood Disasters and Racial Inequality in the Mortgage Market

  Human Ecology · 2024-12-01 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Associations between 1930s HOLC grades and estimated population burden of cardiovascular disease risk factors in 2020

  PNAS Nexus · 2024-08-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Studies have recently begun to explore the potential long-term health impacts of homeownership policies implemented in the New Deal era. We investigated the association between assigned grades of lending risk by the Home Owners' Load Corporation (HOLC) maps from the 1930s and present-day prevalence of three cardiovascular risk factors (diabetes and obesity in 2020, and hypertension in 2019), estimated at the census tract level in the United States. To minimize potential confounding, we adjusted for sociodemographic data from the time period when HOLC maps were made. We calculated propensity scores (predicted probability of receiving a HOLC grade) and created a pseudo-population using inverse probability weighting. We then employed marginal structural models to estimate prevalence differences comparing A vs. B, B vs. C, and C vs. D HOLC grades. Adjusting only for regions, a less desirable HOLC grade was associated with higher estimated prevalence rates of present-day cardiovascular risk factors; however, most differences were no longer significant after applying propensity score methods. The one exception was that the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity were all higher in C vs. B graded census tracts, while no differences were observed for C and D and A and B comparisons. These results contribute to a small body of evidence that suggests historical "yellowlining" (as C grade was in color yellow) may have had persistent impacts on neighborhood-level cardiovascular risk factors 80 years later.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multidimensional Discrimination in the Online Rental Housing Market: Implications for Families With Young Children

  Housing Policy Debate · 2022-01-24 · 41 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A half century after passage of the federal Fair Housing Act, studies continue to document racial discrimination in the housing market, which serves to reproduce racial inequality and residential segregation. Building on this work, we examine housing discrimination experienced by individuals belonging to multiple disadvantaged groups. Employing an online field experiment in 31 U.S. cities over 20 months, we investigate patterns of discrimination against female rental housing applicants at the intersections of race, ethnicity, family structure, and Section 8 housing voucher receipt. Consistent with prior work, we find discrimination against Black women and Section 8 recipients. We also find that only Black women and Latinas are penalized for being parents and for being single mothers to young children. Finally, examining the relevant policy landscape, we find evidence that state and local laws barring discrimination against Section 8 recipients may not be sufficient to protect voucher holders and their families and may instead prompt landlords to engage in subtler forms of discrimination (i.e., increased nonresponse). These findings reveal a dynamic pattern of multidimensional discrimination and support arguments for an intersectional approach to understanding and combatting inequality.

  PublisherDOI

• The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Rental Market: Evidence From Craigslist

  American Behavioral Scientist · 2021 · 45 citations

  • Political Science
  • Demographic economics
  • Economic growth

  Past research has demonstrated the racially and spatially uneven impacts of economic shocks and environmental disasters on various markets. In this article, we examine if and how the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the market for rental housing in the 49 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Using a unique data set of new rental listings gathered from Craigslist and localized measures of the pandemic's severity we find that, from mid-March to early June, local spread of COVID-19 is followed by reduced median and mean rent. However, this trend is driven by dropping rents for listings in Black, Latino, and diverse neighborhoods. Listings in majority White neighborhoods experience rent increases during this time. Our analyses make multiple contributions. First, we add to the burgeoning literature examining the rental market as a key site of perpetuating sociospatial inequality. Second, we demonstrate the utility of data gathered online for analyzing housing. And third, by reflecting on research that shows how past crises have increased sociospatial inequality and up-to-date work showing the racially and spatially unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss some possible mechanisms by which the pandemic may be affecting the market for rental housing as well as implications for long-term trends.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Early Development of the Alimentary System and the Presumptive Visceral Skeleton and Musculature respectively up to stage 28 and stage 37/38

  2020-11-25

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• We Built This: Consequences of New Deal Era Intervention in America’s Racial Geography

  Sage Journals Data · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The contemporary practice of homeownership in the United States was born out of government programs adopted during the New Deal. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)—and later the Federal Housing Administration and GI Bill—expanded home buying opportunity, although in segregationist fashion. Through mechanisms such as redlining, these policies fueled white suburbanization and black ghettoization, while laying the foundation for the racial wealth gap. This is the first article to investigate the long-term consequences of these policies on the segregation of cities. I combine a full century of census data with archival data to show that cities HOLC appraised became more segregated than those it ignored. The gap emerged between 1930 and 1950 and remains significant: in 2010, the black-white dissimilarity, black isolation, and white-black information theory indices are 12, 16, and 8 points higher in appraised cities, respectively. Results are consistent across a range of robustness checks, including exploitation of imperfect implementation of appraisal guidelines and geographic spillover. These results contribute to current theoretical discussions about the persistence of segregation. The long-term impact of these policies is a reminder of the intentionality that shaped racial geography in the United States, and the scale of intervention that will be required to disrupt the persistence of segregation.

  PublisherDOI

• We Built This: Consequences of New Deal Era Intervention in America’s Racial Geography

  American Sociological Review · 2020 · 221 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Geography

  The contemporary practice of homeownership in the United States was born out of government programs adopted during the New Deal. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC)—and later the Federal Housing Administration and GI Bill—expanded home buying opportunity, although in segregationist fashion. Through mechanisms such as redlining, these policies fueled white suburbanization and black ghettoization, while laying the foundation for the racial wealth gap. This is the first article to investigate the long-term consequences of these policies on the segregation of cities. I combine a full century of census data with archival data to show that cities HOLC appraised became more segregated than those it ignored. The gap emerged between 1930 and 1950 and remains significant: in 2010, the black-white dissimilarity, black isolation, and white-black information theory indices are 12, 16, and 8 points higher in appraised cities, respectively. Results are consistent across a range of robustness checks, including exploitation of imperfect implementation of appraisal guidelines and geographic spillover. These results contribute to current theoretical discussions about the persistence of segregation. The long-term impact of these policies is a reminder of the intentionality that shaped racial geography in the United States, and the scale of intervention that will be required to disrupt the persistence of segregation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Patrick Sharkey

  9 shared

• Max Besbris

  9 shared

• Peter Rich

  6 shared

• P. D. Nieuwkoop

  5 shared

• Bhashkar Mazumder

  4 shared

• Ingrid Gould Ellen

  New York University

  4 shared

• Daniel Aaronson

  Medical College of Wisconsin

  3 shared

• Rosine Chandebois

  Aix-Marseille Université

  3 shared

Labs

• Redlining LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology

  New York University

• M.S., Telecommunications Policy

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• M.S., Urban Studies and Planning

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• B.S., Management Science

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Awards & honors

• Michael Harrington Award from the Society for the Study of S…
• NYU's Making a Difference Award
• NYU Wagner's Professor of the Year
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Research Prize