I estimate the impact of new housing supply on the local rent distribution, exploiting weather shocks during the construction phase as an instrument. New supply decreases rents at all quality levels. Building on a quantitative dynamic model of housing quality and tenure choice, I explain this...

The United Kingdom’s housing costs are among the highest on earth, and London is virtually the most expensive major city in the world for renting or buying a home. People often avoid moving to work in productive sectors because nearby housing is too expensive. The proportion of Britons who...

This essay outlines how the UK’s land-use policies and fiscal incentives distort the housing market, while the planning system adversely affects housebuilding and home-ownership. Most policies to date have been ineffective and welfare-reducing, if not outright amplifying the problems...

This paper investigates the development of house prices in Copenhagen in the period 1994-2013, while paying special attention to the heterogeneous impact of the boom and bust periods along the dimensions of housing type (single vs multifamily housing), geography and quality. To allow for price...

House price indexes summarize the development of all house prices in a single number, while actual price movements often differ among market segments. We develop a methodology for measuring house prices as a flexible function of housing services - a one-dimensional quality measure - and apply it...

This paper develops a matching model à la Pissarides (2000) in order to explain the basic facts of housing markets, most of all the variance in house prices. Price dispersion is basically due to both the ex-ante heterogeneity of the parties and the search costs of buyers and sellers. In fact,...

This paper examines whether the Mortensen-Pissarides matching model can account for the housing markets facts, most of all the empirical anomaly known as ‘price dispersion’. Our main finding is that the model can account for the three basic facts of housing market, without any restrictive...

I propose a model of the housing market using a search framework with asymmetric information in which sellers are unable to commit to asking prices announced ex ante. Relaxing the commitment assumption prevents sellers from using price posting as a signalling device to direct buyers' search....

This paper investigates the development of house prices in Copenhagen in the period 1994-2013, while paying special attention to the heterogeneous impact of the boom and bust periods along the dimensions of housing type (single vs multifamily housing), geography and quality. To allow for price...

Landlords appear to use stale information when setting rents. Among over 43,000 California rental houses in 2018-2019, those last purchased during 2005-2007 (the peak) rent for 2-3% more than those purchased during 2008-2010 (bust). Neither house nor landlord characteristics explain this...