Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) pay no corporate taxes, yet surprisingly, their average leverage ratio is more than twice that of taxable firms (46% vs. 20%). We develop and test a model that helps explain this puzzle. The primary result of the model is that credit constrained firms'...

While homeownership provides consumption benefits, housing is risky. Using zip code housing returns, we document that homeowners are compensated for bearing housing risk. Our sample covers more than 9,000 zip codes across 135 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), representing almost 70% of the...