Situated atop condominium buildings, 'top floor units' (TFU) offer unparalleled views and privacy, courtesy of accessible roofs. This paper empirically examines this status symbol and finds that: (1) TFUs interact with the macroeconomy differently from ordinary units, (2) when considering the...

Using a unique survey data of Chinese households, we study the impact of house price growth and house price risk on entrepreneurship. House price risk, measured as the sensitivity of house price growth to local GDP growth, negatively impacts the entrepreneurship of homeowners relative to...

We build an on-the-house-search model and show analytically that the rent-to-price ratio (or rental yield) and turnover rate, which are frequently used metrics for the housing market, are jointly determined in equilibrium. We therefore adopt a simultaneous equation approach on matched...

This paper studies children as a risky asset associated to an investment option. Children provide utility but have a stochastic maintenance cost. We obtain several new results relative to models where children are deterministic goods, among which: i) Higher child risks diminish fertility and...

This paper investigates the effect of demographic changes on land prices in urban China using an Overlapping Generation (OLG) model. The model suggests that the rapid rise in land prices could be explained by the rise in per capita income and demographic changes. This finding is validated by...

This paper investigates the effect of aging on housing prices. It provides a theoretical explanation to address the on-going debate about this issue. The analysis demonstrates that aging has divergent effects on housing prices, depending on the net effects of a fall in fertility vis-à-vis a...

We test the effect of an increase in longevity on housing prices. The results show that workers and retirees react differently towards the impact of longer lifespans, and thus the housing price is influenced by the relative weight of the retirees vis-à-vis workers in the total population.

We empirically test the effect of ageing on housing prices. Our analysis shows that a decline in the fertility rate and an increase in longevity – the two main causes of an ageing population – have divergent effects on housing prices. This empirical finding helps us to reconcile a conflict...

This paper investigates the effect of aging on housing prices. It provides a theoretical explanation to address the on-going debate about this issue. The analysis demonstrates that aging has divergent effects on housing prices, depending on the net effects of a fall in fertility vis-à-vis a...

This paper analyzes the effects of demographic changes on the long-run pattern of real house prices in an overlapping generations general equilibrium model with housing-wealth effects. It is demonstrated that declines in the birth rate and in population growth, associated with increases in life...