Digital platforms are not only match-making intermediaries but also establish internal rules that govern all users in their ecosystems. To better understand the governing role of platforms, we study two Airbnb pro-guest rules that pertain to guest and host cancellations, using data on Airbnb and...

Using bi-weekly snapshots of Zillow in three US cities, we document how home sellers and buyers interact with Zillow's Zestimate algorithm during the sales cycle of residential properties. We find that listing and selling outcomes respond significantly to Zestimate, and Zestimate is quickly...

In many countries of the world the co-residence of young adults aged 25-34 with their parents is not uncommon and in some countries the savings rates of these age groups exceed those of the middle-aged contrary to the standard model of life-cycle savings. In this paper we examine the role of...

By exploiting variation in state capital gains taxation as an instrument, we analyze the economic consequences of housing speculation during the U.S. housing boom in the 2000s. We find that housing speculation, anchored, in part, on extrapolation of past housing price changes, led not only to...

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the adoption of a number of policies that aim to reduce the spread of the disease by promoting housing stability. Housing precarity, which includes both the risk of eviction and utility disconnections or shut-offs, reduces a person's ability to abide by...

The paper generalizes the Grossman and Laroque (1990) model of optimal consumption and portfolio allocation in the context in which a durable good (or house) subject to adjustment costs is both an argument of the utility function and a component of wealth. Because the Grossman and Laroque model...

The social capital literature documents a connection between social connection and economic outcomes of interest ranging from government quality to economic growth. Popular authors suggest that housing and architecture are important determinants of social connection. This paper examines the...

We describe a model in which rental and owner housing are risky assets, tenure choice is endogenous, and each household is constrained to consume the same amount of owner housing as it has in its investment portfolio. At each iteration in the search for an equilibrium, we determine the new...

Recent empirical work in public finance uses the housing price response to public investments to assess the efficiency of local durable public good provision. This paper investigates the theoretical foundations for this technique. In the context of a novel theoretical model developed to study...