Financial Market Imperfections and Home Ownership: A Comparative Study

We explore the determinants of the international pattern of homeownership using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), a collection of microeconomic data on fourteen OECD countries. In most of these countries the cross-section is repeated over time. This allows us to construct a truly unique international dataset on over 400,000 households. The dataset also includes selected demographic variables (carefully matched between the different surveys). After controlling for individual-country effects, cohort effects and calendar time effects, we find strong evidence that different downpayment ratios affect the age-profile of housing tenure, particularly for the young.