This paper examines the impact of a specific local tax limit, Proposition 2* in Massachusetts, on the fiscal behavior of cities and towns in Massachusetts and the capitalization of that behavior into property values. Proposition 2* places a cap on the effective property tax rate at 2.5 percent...

We examine the link between increases in housing wealth, financial wealth, and consumer spending. We rely upon a panel of 14 countries observed annually for various periods during the past 25 years and a panel of U.S. states observed quarterly during the 1980s and 1990s. We impute the aggregate...

This paper analyzes the pattern of cross-sectional house price appreciation in the Boston metropolitan area from 1982 to 1994. The empirical results are consistent with many of the predictions of a standard urban model in which towns have a fixed set of locational attributes and amenities. In...

Evidence is shown, using US foreclosure data by state 1975-93, that periods of high default rates on home mortgages strongly tend to follow real estate price declines or interruptions in real estate price increase. The relation between price decline and foreclosure rates is modelled using a...

The U. S. market for homes appears not to be efficient. A number of information variables predict housing price changes and excess returns of housing relative to debt over the succeeding year. Price changes observed over one year tend to continue for one more year in the same direction....

A questionnaire survey looked at home buyers in May 1988 in two "boom" cities currently experiencing rapid price increases (Anaheim and San Francisco), a "post-boom" city whose home prices are stable or falling a couple years after rapid price increase (Boston) and a "control" city where home...

Tests of weak-form efficiency of the market for single family homes are performed using data on repeat sales prices of 39,210 individual homes, each for two sales dates. Tests were done for Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco/Oakland for 1970-86. While evidence for seasonality in real...

This paper uses data on nearly a million homes sold in four metropolitan areas -- Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco -- to construct quarterly indexes of existing home prices between 1970 and 1986. We propose and apply a new method of constructing such indexes which we call the weighted...

The economy of Massachusetts is in a deep recession. What makes the downturn all the more painful is that it comes on the heels of a period of unprecedented prosperity. What happened? How could a state go from having the lowest unemployment rate in the US to having the second highest in the...

Questionnaire surveys undertaken in 1988 and annually from 2003 through 2014 of recent homebuyers in each of four U.S. metropolitan areas shed light on their expectations and reasons for buying during the recent housing boom and subsequent collapse. They also provide insight into the reasons for...