Sources of Fluctuations in the Housing Market

In this study, sources of economic fluctuations in the housing market are investigated using U.S. data. A structural VAR (vector autoregressive) model is set up with a new method of ordering the residuals introduced by swanson and granger (1997) that is based on an analysis of the contemporaneous error structure. To specify the sources of fluctuations in the housing market, several important innovations are included in the model: a marginal income tax rate shock, an interest rate shock, a factor cost shock, a housing supply shock, an income shock, a housing demand shock,a residential price shock, and a housing price shock. Empirical results show that the interest rate shock appears to be the most significant innovation among all shocks, although the marginal federal income tax rate shock, the housing price shock, and the factor price for housing supply shock also play important roles in explaininig fluctuations in the housing market. [R0,R1]