Housing is a long-lived asset whose value is sensitive to variations in long-term growth and interest rates. When a large fraction of the population is leveraged, housing price fluctuations cause large-scale redistribution and consumption volatility. We examine policies to mitigate the impact of...

Both growth and unevenness in the distribution of housing wealth have become characteristic of advanced societies in recent decades. Housing Wealth and Welfare examines, in various contexts, how housing property ownership has become central both to household wellbeing and to the reshaping of...

We document that home ownership of households with 'heads' aged 25-44 years fell substantially between 1980 and 2000 and recovered only partially during the 2001-2005 housing boom. The 1980-2000 decline in young home ownership occurred as improvements in mortgage opportunities seemingly made it...

After three decades of being relatively constant, the homeownership rate increased over the 1994-2005 period to attain record highs. The objective of this paper is to account for the observed boom in ownership by examining the role played by changes in demographic factors and innovations in the...