The aim of this paper is to review the international evidence on the impacts of mortgage interest deductions on homeownership rates. The probability of becoming a homeowner is a function of the relative cost of owning and renting, borrowing constraints, permanent household income, and a set of...

We review the main studies on house price synchronization and conduct an empirical analysis using OECD house price indices. We provide a discussion of the contributing factors of synchronization, with a focus on the demand and supply dimensions. Synchronization across both countries and cities...

At 34%, Switzerland has the lowest home ownership rate in Western Europe. This is a puzzle given the economic strength of the country. We use 1998 household survey data for five Swiss cantons to explore some possible reasons for this. We estimate a tenure choice equation that allows us to...

Purpose:The article analyzes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on house prices.Design/Methodology/Approach:We start by discussing the possibility that house price indexes may not fully incorporate the effects of the pandemic as of yet. Against the background of the pandemic, we then analyze...

We examine the optimal allocation of assets in the portfolio of a Colombian homeowner conditional on various levels of the house value to net wealth ratio. The high rate of home ownership and low rates of investment in financial assets indicate that households allocate most of their wealth to...

We study the impact of housing conditions on the educational outcomes of young persons in Switzerland. We focus on children ages 15 to 19, who are potentially enrolled in or graduates of high school or vocational training programs, and young adults ages 20 to 24, who are potentially students in...

Purpose – We use a large and rich data set consisting of over 123,000 single-family houses sold in Switzerland between 2005 and 2017 to investigate the accuracy and volatility of different methods for estimating and updating hedonic valuation models.Design/methodology/approach – We apply six...

We analyze the relationship between ask and transaction prices in the Swiss residential real estate market over the 2005-2015 period. First, we present strong evidence that ask and transaction prices are co-integrated across different market segments, but they do not Granger-cause one another....

We present the symmetric thermal optimal path (TOPS) method to determine the time-dependent lead-lag relationship between two stochastic time series. This novel version of the previously introduced TOP method alleviates some inconsistencies by imposing that the lead-lag relationship should be...

Using data for 70 U.S. metropolitan areas, this study explores spatial heterogeneity in house price dynamics. We use recent advances in panel econometrics that allow for spatial heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependence, and non-stationary but cointegrated data. We test for spatial differences...