This paper addresses two long-standing positive questions in public finance: (i) Why is the property tax, despite widespread popular complaints against its fairness, the almost exclusive tax instrument used by local governments, and (ii) why do we ...

During the past two decades, Swedish government policy has decentralized post-secondary education throughout the country. We investigate the economic effects of this decentralization policy on the level of productivity and innovation and their spatial distribution in the national economy. We...

This paper investigates the effects of national and regional economic conditions on outcomes in the single-family housing market: housing prices, vacancies, and residential construction activity. Our three-equation model confirms the importance of changes in regional economic conditions, income,...

This paper tests the "lock-in" effect of mortgage contract terms and establishes the link between changes in market interest rates and homeowner mobility. The analysis is based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics during 1990-1993, when mortgage interest rates declined by almost 30 percent

Option theory predicts that mortgage prepayment or default will be exercised by homeowners if the call or put option is sufficiently "in the money." This analysis: tests the extent to which the option approach explains default and prepayment behavior; evaluates the importance of modeling both...

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...