This paper suggests that the decline in equity prices, and thus in Tobin's average q, during the 1970s may be attributable to changes in expected relative factor prices. More specifically, q is shown to be a negative function of the extent to which current relative factor price expectations...

Real metropolitan house prices have been quite volatile during the 1977-91 period, with half of our 30 areas having annual increases of above 15 percent in a single year and a third having decreases greater than 7.5 percent. Drawing on Capozza and Helsley's models of real land prices, we express...

We consider retail leases with landlord overages options, with tenant renewal options, with both and with neither. We illustrate how the ratio of initial expected sales to the sales threshold can be manipulated to equate the value of the landlord overage options to that of the tenant renewal...

Mankiw and Weil have estimated a demographically-driven real house price equation on annual data from the 1947-87 period and used it to forecast real house prices over the 1988-2007 period. The result is their infamous 47 percent real decline. Their equation really only fits data from the 1950s...

The paper begins with presentation of a methodology for computing rental costs of capital under any tax regime.Tax law over the 1980-84 period is specified and the provisions of theTreasury and Administration tax reform proposals and HR 3838 are described. A model is then constructed to allow...

Household or personal saving is recomputed to include net purchases of consumer durables, net contributions to government life insurance and pension reserves, and an adjustment for the inflation premium component in interest income. These adjustments raise the measured household saving rate by...

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 significantly reduced the taxation of income-producing properties by accelerating tax depreciation on both new and, especially, existing properties. A partial reversal of the 1981 legislation appears likely. To provide some insight into the possible effects...

The aggregate homeownership rate in the United States has continued to rise throughout the 1970s despite rising inflation and the rapid growth of young and primary individual households with relatively low homeownership rates. This appears to be a result of a decline in the cost of homeownership...

Ownership patterns for young (under 45) married couples are striking in two respects. First, ownership rates rise dramatically with age: couples 35- 44 consistently have ownership rates nearly 50 percentage points higher than couples under 25. Second, half of the sharp ownership gains of young...

Changes in six-month bill rates over semiannual periods in the 1960s and 1970s are successfully related to expected changes and to surprises. The latter include unanticipated changes in expected inflation, in the growth of industrial production and base money, and in inflation uncertainty....