This paper studies the economic benefits of home ownership. Exploiting a quasi-experiment surrounding privatization decisions of municipally-owned apartment buildings, we obtain random variation in home ownership for otherwise similar buildings with similar tenants. We link the tenants to their...

I show that home ownership decisions across countries and individuals are shaped by a cultural heritage from agriculture. For centuries, dominant assets in pre-industrial economies were either land or cattle. Consequently, the type of farming prevailing locally shaped preferences and believes...