We find that children of homeowners have better outcomes than children of renters whether their parents make a large or small initial investment in their home, as long as they make a minimal down payment when they buy their homes. Children with parents who made no down payment have similar...

In this paper, we estimate the impact of tax policy on tenure choice using probit and housing expenditure regressions based on Public Use Microsample data from the 1990 and 2000 US Census. We find that tax policy has important impacts on tenure choice, and that the impact increased for blacks...

Not so long ago, the US housing finance system was arguably the best in the world. Consumers had access to products that were not available elsewhere, and the market was able to sustain major economic disruptions with relatively little impact on either the cost or availability of mortgage...

This paper examines the effect of different kinds of investments on the business cycle. Specifically, it examines whether residential and non-residential investment Granger cause GDP, and whether GDP Granger causes each of these types of investments. The paper uses quarterly National Income and...

This research assesses the impact of income and property taxes on house prices using a decadal panel data set for 63 metropolitan areas from 1970 to 1990. Our evidence is consistent with full capitalization of marginal income tax rates into house prices. Full capitalization suggests that income...

This study uses new data on the rate of prepayment on conventional single-family adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that originated between 1983 and 1986 to determine if ARMs with and without initial-year discounts have the same probability of paying off. The new data are from a large national...

This paper investigates the relative maintenance levels of owner and renter-occupied housing by examining their short and long-run appreciation rates. A large data set that includes information on every parcel in Pinellas County, Florida is used to control for structural and locational...

Recent Administration proposals intend to increase the homeownership rate by roughly 2.5 percent to 67.5 percent by the year 2000. The possible use of the federal tax code is virtually ignored in these proposals. Using a user cost framework incorporated into a tenure choice equation and both...

High school dropouts are more likely to have children in cities where college share is high, while those who received greater education are less likely to have children in these cities. This pattern is puzzling as cities that attract college graduates have higher cost of living, and can be more...