In a world with complete markets and no transactions cost, the decision whether to rent or buy a home is separate from a household's professional income risk. If markets are incomplete and have frictions, however, profession- specific income risk, regional house price risk, and mobility needs...

The need to understand and leverage consumer-brand bonds has become critical in a marketplace characterized by increasing unpredictability, diminishing product differentiation, and heightened competitive pressure. This is especially true for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturers and...

This paper examines the welfare cost of rare housing disasters characterized by large drops in house prices. I construct an overlapping generations general equilibrium model with recursive preferences and housing disaster shocks. The likelihood and magnitude of housing disasters are inferred...

We show that the hedging benefit of owning a home reduces the variability of housing consumption after a move. When a current home owner's house price covaries positively with housing costs in a future city, changes in the future cost of housing are offset by commensurate changes in wealth...

We build a realistically calibrated life-cycle model of housing decisions under divorce risk. As observed in the data, our model predicts the recent increase in divorce rates leads to reduced homeownership rates. The event of a divorce negatively affects homeownership, and this effect is...

In a world with complete markets, the decision whether to rent or buy a home is not influenced by risks related to human capital. If markets are incomplete and have frictions, however, this may change. Renting should become more likely the more mobile a household has to be and the more income...

I develop an equilibrium model of housing and default to jointly analyze the effects of bankruptcy and foreclosure policies. Heterogeneous households have access to mortgages and unsecured credit and can default separately on both types of debt. I show that the interaction between foreclosure...

This paper studies a household's optimal demand for a reverse mortgage. These contracts allow homeowners to tap their home equity to finance consumption needs. In stylized frameworks, we show that the decision to enter a reverse mortgage is mainly driven by the dierential between the aggregate...

This paper explores optimal consumption and portfolio decisions in the presence of risky house prices. We assume that changes in real interest rates and future rents directly impact house prices. A novel aspect of our model is that rent inflation rates and consumption inflation rates are...

In a world with complete markets and no transactions cost, the decision whether to rent or buy a home is separate from a household's professional income risk. If markets are incomplete and have frictions, however, profession- specific income risk, regional house price risk, and mobility needs...