Tag Archives: Housing

Investment Hangover and the Great Recession

From Alp Simsek, Andrei Sheifer, and Matthew Rognile: We present a model of investment hangover motivated by the Great Recession. In our model, overbuilding of residential capital requires a reallocation of productive resources to nonresidential sectors, which is facilitated by … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Growth in Cities and Countries

From Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti: A large micro literature has documented the local forces leading to growth and decline of cities. This paper measures the consequences of these local forces on aggregate output and welfare. We use a Rosen-Roback model of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quasi-Experimental Evidence on The Connection Between Property Taxes and Residential Capital Investment

From Byron Lutz: Do low property taxes attract residential capital investment? This question is answered using an unusual school finance reform in the state of New Hampshire. The reform induced large shifts in property tax burdens and this shock is used … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tax Benefits to Housing and Inefficiencies in Location and Consumption

From David Albouy and Andrew Hanson: Tax benefits to owner-occupied housing provide incentives for housing consumption, offsetting weaker disincentives of the property tax. These benefits also help counter the penalty federal taxes impose on households who work in productive high-wage … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arrested Development: Theory and Evidence of Supply-Side Speculation in the Housing Market

From Nathanson and Zwick: This paper incorporates speculation into the standard supply-and-demand framework used to analyze housing booms and busts. Speculation reverses the common intuition that elastic housing supply attenuates housing booms. Housing market frictions make land a more attractive … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Housing Collateral and Entrepreneurship

From Martin Schmalz, David Sraer, and David Thesmar: This paper shows that collateral constraints restrict entrepreneurial activity. Our empirical strategy uses variations in local house prices as shocks to the value of col- lateral available to individuals owning a house and … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Housing Dynamics

From Ed Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, Eduardo Morales and Charles Nathanson: The volatility of housing prices and construction levels is high. Both price changes and permits exhibit strong positive serial correlations at one year frequencies. Prices, but not permits, show strong mean … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Heterogeneity in the MPC: Evidence from the Crisis

We find evidence supportive of heterogeneity in the MPC by household income and leverage. For example, the MPC for households living in zip codes with an average annual income of less than $35 thousand is three times as large as … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

One thing I learned in Hanover this weekend – UK Housing Subsidies Edition

Sorry for the light posting – I was out of town for a college reunion. It was great to talk to old classmates. One of my friends who lives in London told me about new UK mortgage subsidy programs that … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Will Housing Save the U.S. Economy? by Amir Sufi

Sufi has a short paper on this issue that is worth reading. My bottom line is that we need to temper our optimism on what  a housing recovery can do for the U.S. economy. I agree that house prices will continue … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments