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...

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...

While the average change in house prices is related to changes in fundamentals or perhaps market-wide bubbles, not all houses in a market appreciate at the same rate. The primary focus of our study is to investigate the reasons for these variations in price changes among houses within a market....

This paper explores the prices of three aesthetic externalities (the presence of a water view, the appearance of nearby improvements, and the quality of landscaping in the neighborhood) in residential property markets. In particular, we focus on how the implicit prices of such characteristics...

Home ownership rates for New Zealanders of European descent aged 25 to 54 are 16 percentage points higher than for Maori in the same age group. This paper explores the relative attainment of home ownership of the two ethnic groups by estimating a series of tenure choice models and decomposing...

This study extends recent work that developed and tested economic models of the joint decisions of household formation and homeownership. The cost of shelter is an important determinant of whether youth live independently (apart from parents and other nonrelated adults), and the cost of...

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...

Using data for six metropolitan housing markets in three countries, this paper provides a comparison of methods used to measure house price bubbles. We use an asset pricing approach to identify bubble periods retrospectively and then compare those results with results produced by six other...