The effect of financial crises on innovation is an unsettled and important question for economic growth, but one difficult to answer with modern data. Using a differences-in-differences design surrounding the Great Depression, we document that local distress caused a sudden and persistent...

Climate change partisanship is reflected in residential choice. Comparing individual occupants at properties in the same zip code with similar elevation and proximity to the coast, registered republicans (democrats) are more (less) likely than independents to own houses exposed to sea level rise...

We use the founding of the Federal Reserve as a historical experiment to provide some insight into whether a lender of last resort can stabilize financial markets. Following the Panic of 1907, Congress passed two measures that established a lender of last resort in the United States: (1) the...

U.S. state pensions are underfunded by trillions of dollars, but their economic burden is unclear. In a model of inefficient taxation, real estate fully reflects the cost of pension shortfalls when it is the only form of immobile capital. We study the effect of pension shortfalls on real estate...

I find that negative home equity causes a 2%-6% reduction in household labor supply. I utilize U.S. household-level data and plausibly exogenous variation in the location-timing of home purchases with a single lender. Supporting causality, households are observationally equivalent at origination...

The effect of financial crises on innovation is an unsettled and important question for economic growth, but one difficult to answer with modern data. Using a differences-in-differences design surrounding the Great Depression, we document that local distress caused by the Depression led to a...

Homes exposed to sea level rise (SLR) sell for approximately 7% less than observably equivalent unexposed properties equidistant from the beach. This discount has grown over time and is driven by sophisticated buyers and communities worried about global warming. Consistent with causal...

This paper employs Dutch administrative population data to test the “housing lock hypothesis”: the conjecture that homeowners with negative home equity, low levels of financial assets and restricted opportunities to borrow reduce their mobility. We exploit variation in home equity solely...