Solar power is now economically competitive with fossil fuels in many countries, yet relatively few homeowners have installed solar panels on their property. A principal reason for this behavior stems from cognitive biases--such as myopia, inertia and herding--that cause consumers to avoid...

Real and private-value assets--defined here as the sum of real estate, infrastructure, collectibles, and non-corporate business equity--is an investment class worth an estimated $85 trillion in the U.S. alone. Furthermore, private values can affect pricing in many other financial markets, such...

We study the impact of remote work on the commercial office sector. We document large shifts in lease revenues, office occupancy, lease renewal rates, lease durations, and market rents as firms shifted to remote work in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. We show that the pandemic has had large...

The conversion of brown office buildings to green apartments can contribute towards a solution to three pressing issues: oversupply of office in a hybrid-and-remote-work world, shortage of housing, and excessive greenhouse gas emissions. We propose a set of criteria to identify commercial office...

Commercial real estate accounts for roughly 20% of the U.S. fixed asset stock, and commercial land use is highly regulated. However, little is known about the quantitative impact of these regulations on economic activity or consumer welfare. This paper develops a spatial general equilibrium...

Building on the work of Jiang et al. (2023) we develop a framework to analyze the effects of credit risk on the solvency of U.S. banks in the rising interest rate environment. We focus on commercial real estate (CRE) loans that account for about quarter of assets for an average bank and about...

Of the components of GDP, residential investment offers by far the best early warning sign of an oncoming recession. Since World War II we have had eight recessions preceded by substantial problems in housing and consumer durables. Housing did not give an early warning of the Department of...

A reduction in inflation can fuel run-ups in housing prices if people suffer from money illusion. For example, investors who decide whether to rent or buy a house by simply comparing monthly rent and mortgage payments do not take into account that inflation lowers future real mortgage costs. We...

This paper surveys and interprets a wide body of literature on the taxation and subsidization of investment in owner-occupied and rental housing. Where available, the study considers experiences outside of the United States. Issues addressed include what nonneutral taxation is, how...

This paper employs a general equilibrium model to assess the effects of major components of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on the performance of housing and other industries. The model considers both short-term and long-term effects on housing demands, house values, and investment in housing. Model...