Amid concerns of how U.S. cities "sprawl", it is useful to look at the cities of other developed nations, in particular Western Europe which has attained U.S. - type prosperity, but which is reputed to have cities Americans should look to as a model. We examine recent data which suggest that...

The authorsanalyze the best available economic data and conclude that American consumers--particularly the less affluent--have benefited tremendously from Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices."

The authorsanalyze the best available economic data and conclude that American consumers--particularly the less affluent--have benefited tremendously from Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices."

Two empirical papers study US housing markets and treat the impacts of both natural geographic constraints, such as water bodies and steep slopes, and regulatory restrictions. Albert Saiz (2010) concentrates on identifying the impact of natural geographic constraints. Saiz creates measures of...

This paper argues for the importance of separating the bundled good of housing into land and improvements, because locational amenities - which often constitute a significant portion of property value - are typically capitalized into the value of land but not the value of the physical structure...

To help communities recover from the foreclosure crisis, Congress enacted a set of policies known as the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). NSP's objective was to mitigate the impact of foreclosures on neighboring properties, through reducing the stock of distressed properties and...

This paper addresses the market's perception of risk from terrorism by examining the prices of single-family homes before and after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. In the wake of the attacks, government officials responded by raising security at sites considered to be likely...

Urban economics and sociology offer many narratives to explain the evolution ofurban America since the Second World War. These stories include the rise and fall ofsegregation, the inexorable march of the middle class to the suburbs, the ¯ltering ofaging housing stock from one class to the...

This paper examines index revision in measuring the prices for owner-occupied housing. We consider the context of equityinsurance and the settlement of futures contracts. In addition to other desirable characteristics for aggregate price indexes, their usefulness in these contexts requires...

As a stated policy objective, the U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment seeks to boost the national homeownership rate to 70 percent by 2006. To accomplish this goal, they estimate that 3.8 million additional families be added to the ranks of U.S. homeowners. Furthermore, HUD estimates...