This study looks at real estate price booms and busts in industrialised countries. Itidentifies major and persistent deviations from long term trends for 18 countries andestimates the probabilities of their occurrence using a Random Effects Panel Probitmodel over the period 1980-2007. It finds...

This paper analyses rental contracts in the housing market assu-ming asymmetric information about tenant related `service cost' andimperfect mobility. On the positive side it explains why long standingtenants tend to enjoy lower rents |the so called `tenure discount'. Onthe normative side, it...

We consider a general equilibrium model with frictions in credit markets used by households. Inour economy, houses provide housing services to consumers and serve as collateral to lower borrowingcost.We show that this amplifies and propagates the effect of monetary policy shocks on...

The crisis enveloping global financial markets since August 2007 was triggered by actual and prospective credit losses on US mortgages. Was the United States just unlucky to have been the first to experience a housing crisis? Or was it inherently more susceptible to one? I examine the limited...

We use a user-cost model to study how dispersed information among housing marketparticipants a¤ects the equilibrium house price. In the model, agents are disparatelyinformed about local economic conditions, consume housing services, and speculate onprice changes. Information dispersion leads...

In this paper we show that subtle forms of deceit undermine the effectiveness of incentives.We design an experiment in which the principal has an interest in underreporting the trueperformance difference between the agents in a dynamic tournament...

Three results emerge from a simple experiment on imitation. First, I find behavior which strongly suggests an intention to imitate. Second, players imitate successful other players rather than repeating successful actions. Third, to find imitation examples, players use several periods of memory....

In this paper, we analyze a principal's optimal feedback policy in tournaments. We close agap in the literature by assuming the principal to be unable to commit to a certain policy atthe beginning of the tournament...

There have been many claims that the Internet represents a nearly frictionless market. This paper extends the empirical results on online retailing by studying prices for nearly homogenous services - holiday packages - matched across conventional and Internet channels. On first sight, lower...

Am Abend des 30. Oktober 1938 löste eine Radiosendung in den USA eine Massenhysterie aus (vgl. Wells 1974: 342). Das Hörspiel Krieg der Welten wurde von ca. sechs Millionen Menschen verfolgt, zwei Millionen von ihnen glaubten, die Sendung basiere auf aktuellen Geschehnissen. Die darauf...