This paper analyses the default option typical to American mortgages. Households borrow to buy durable housing, but future house prices are uncertain, and households find it dvantageous to default on their debt if house prices fall sufficiently. A key assumption of the model is that households...

This paper studies the association between the current account and real estate valuation across countries, subject to data availability [43 countries, of which 25 are OECD], during 1990 - 2005. We find robust and strong positive association between current account deficits and the appreciation...

The application of hedonic price approaches to obtain estimates of the households' value of apartment characteristics is invalid for regulated housing markets such as public housing. We introduce and apply an alternative method that allows us to estimate renters' marginal willingness to pay for...

This paper analyzes the effects of land use constraints on housing prices. We provide a new framework for evaluating policy when mobility across regions is allowed but limited. A key result is that loosening regulatory constraints within individual regions would have little effect on prices for...

This paper analyzes housing market reactions to the release of previously unpublished information on school quality. Using the sharp discontinuity in the information environment allows us to study price changes within school catchment areas, thus controlling for neighborhood unobservables. We...

We consider taxation by a utilitarian government in the presence of heterogeneous locations within a country. We show that a utilitarian government never equalizes after-tax incomes, even when it can impose group-specific lump-sum taxes. If migration is impossible, a utilitarian government may...

This paper proposes maximum likelihood estimators for panel seemingly unrelated regressions with both spatial lag and spatial error components. We study the general case where spatial effects are incorporated via spatial errors terms and via a spatial lag dependent variable and where the...

This paper describes an equilibrium life-cycle model of housing where nonconvex adjustment costs lead households to adjust their housing choice infrequently and by large amounts when they do so. In the cross-sectional dimension, the model matches the wealth distribution; the age profiles of...

Standard explanations for the income heterogeneity within neighborhoods rely on differences of preferences across households and heterogeneity of the housing stock. We propose an alternative and complementary explanation. We construct a stochastic equilibrium sorting model where (1) income is...