The question of whether the housing market is efficient or not is posed by an increasing number of economists, policymakers, current homeowners and prospective homebuyers. This article tests the efficiency hypothesis on data from the Norwegian housing market in its capital, Oslo. We employ the...

This paper investigates household purchasing behavior in response to differing alcohol and tobacco taxes near an international border. Our study suggests that large tax differentials near borders induce economically important tax avoidance behavior that may limit a government's ability to raise...

Standard practice of estimating purchasing power parities (PPP) involves using prices, in domestic currencies, of a common basket of goods and services, then calculating the price-equalizing exchange rate. In this article, I substitute observed consumer behavior for price data. On the assumption...

Taxes on housing consumption have attractive features. They can enhance overall efficiency, function as automatic stabilizers, and work progressively. Implementation, however, requires a careful balance between economic ambition and political reality. This article suggests a 5-stage procedure:...

The house price level is a function of buyers' realized home equity, and buyers' realized home equity is a function of the house price level. This interdependence follows from the fact that buyers are sellers in the same market. This article examines under what conditions this leads to a...

While aggregate house price indices display time persistence, less is known about micro persistence. This article proposes that absence of micro persistence implies that an excessively high or low sell price in one transaction is not repeated in the next transaction. We exploit a unique...

While aggregate house price indices display time persistence, less is known about micro persistence. This article proposes that absence of micro persistence implies that an excessively high or low sell price in one transaction is not repeated in the next transaction. We exploit a unique...

Conventional estimates of purchasing power parities (PPP) rely on cross-country price data. Using Engel curves, Almås (Am Econ Rev 102:1093–1117, <CitationRef CitationID="CR2">2012</CitationRef>) was, however, able to show that PPPs contain substantial bias. Since constructing conventional estimates is expensive and time consuming,...</citationref>