In this paper, we implement a new measure, the rental equivalence approach, in estimating the cost of Irish housing for the purposes of the consumer price index (CPI). The cost of housing composes both the cost of owner occupier housing (OOH) as well as the cost of renting. This work, which is...

This study investigates whether the unprecedented liquidity injected in the economy by the U.S Fed through unconventional monetary policy measure, popularly known as quantitative easing (QE), is a systematic factor that can explain the abnormally low U.S. housing starts of recent years. We use...

The treatment of owner-occupied housing (OOH) is probably the most important unresolved issue in inflation measurement. The European Union has been grappling with this problem for over a decade. We argue for measuring OOH costs using a particular version of the user cost method. We then compare...

The gap between market rent and the price of shelter was 6.6 percent larger in December 2023 relative to December 2019. Because shelter prices comprise 36 percent of the Consumer Price Index and therefore influence monetary policy decisions, it is vital to understand the pass-through of this...

Systemic risk must include the housing market, though economists have not generally focused on it. We begin construction of an agent-based model of the housing market with individual data from Washington, DC. Twenty years of success with agent-based models of mortgage prepayments give us hope...

The COVID-19 pandemic further extended the multi-year housing boom in advanced economies and emerging markets alike against massive monetary easing during the pandemic. In this paper, we analyze the pricing-out phenomenon in the U.S. residential housing market due to higher house prices...

The boom and subsequent bust in housing construction and prices over the 2000s is widely regarded as a principal contributor to the Financial Panic of 2007 and the subsequent Great Recession. As of this writing, housing market activity remains at depressed levels as the economy slowly resolves...

This paper assesses the predictive power of variables that measure market tightness, such as seller's bargaining power and sale probabilities, on future home prices. Theoretical insights from a stylized search-and-matching model illustrate that such indicators can be associated with subsequent...

The number 8, pronounced like 'prosperity,' is lucky in Chinese culture; 4, pronounced like 'death' is unlucky. Superstitious beliefs may influence asset prices if transaction participants have cultural preferences for specific numbers. We analyze the relationship between the presence of 8s and...

I examine racial bias in the most popular home valuation algorithm and study the algorithm's impact on racial bias in transaction prices. I find statistically significant but economically small racial bias in the algorithm. For example, while Black buyers overpay by 9.3% in prices relative to...