We study the link between homeownership, mortgage debt, and entrepreneurship using a model of occupational choice and housing tenure where homeowners commit to mortgage payments. Our model predicts that, as long as mortgage rates exceed the rate of interest on liquid wealth: (i) mortgage debt,...

We quantify the housing-consumption channel in mortgage demand according to which households borrow more following house-price increases since housing and non-housing consumption are imperfect substitutes. To identify this channel, we take a structural approach to mortgage demand and supply,...

This paper studies whether the interplay of social comparisons in housing and rising income inequality contributed to the household debt boom in the US between 1980 and 2007. We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with general social comparisons in housing to show that changes in the...

This paper investigates the US housing market from just before the Great Recession onward (2006-2019) and assesses the viability of stock-flow matching in generating the observed outcomes. The paper documents that the probability a house sells declines sharply after listing for two weeks....

We estimate the transmission of the pandemic shock in 2020 to prices in the residential and commercial real estate market by causal machine learning, using new granular data at the municipal level for Germany. We exploit differences in the incidence of Covid infections or short-time work at the...

We conduct a survey experiment among 18,000 respondents in Germany to examine the determinants of support for rent control policies. Highlighting undesirable price and supply effects lowers respondents' agreement with rent control, while pointing out that it can prevent displacement of...

This paper presents a dynamic theory of housing market fluctuations. It develops a life-cycle model where households are heterogeneous with respect to income and preferences, and mortgage lending is restricted by a down-payment requirement. The market interaction of young credit-constrained...

We consider taxation by a Leviathan government and by a utilitarian government in the presence of heterogeneous locations within a country, when migration from one country to another is and is not possible. In a closed economy, a utilitarian government may transfer income from the poor to the...

Property taxes impact the housing distribution across generations. Low property taxes lead to concentrated ownership among elderly empty-nesters, limiting housing for financially constrained young families. Conversely, high property taxes act as a “forced mortgage,” reducing upfront...

Standard explanations for the income heterogeneity within neighborhoods rely on differences of preferences across households and heterogeneity of the housing stock. We propose an alternative and complementary explanation. We construct a stochastic equilibrium sorting model where (1) income is...