We present a simple model of the price process of a capital asset that is subject to serially correlated demand shocks, and whose supply responds with a lag. In this setting the price of the asset can exhibit positive serial correlation over short intervals and negative serial correlation over...

We analyze the prices of owner-occupied housing in 97 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2011. Our tests indicate that price changes exhibit positive serial correlation at the one year intervals, with subsequent reversals of price changes over longer intervals. Consistent with our simple model,...

We analyze the prices of owner-occupied housing in 97 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2011. Our tests indicate that price changes exhibit positive serial correlation at the one year intervals, with subsequent reversals of price changes over longer intervals. Consistent with our simple model,...

This paper analyzes the risk-taking behavior of financial intuitions that have guarantees (e.g., banks with deposit insurance or Government Sponsored Enterprises with implicit guarantees) and/or institutions that find it beneficial to develop a reputation for not taking risk. For instance, banks...

It has been widely assumed that there was a bubble in the U.S. housing market after 1999. This paper analyzes the extent to which that was true. We define a bubble as: (1) a regime shift that is characterized by a change in the properties of deviations from the fundamentals of house price...

This paper analyzes the bubble in property values across cities in the U.S. from 1999 through 2005. We find evidence of momentum in house price growth (relative to growth in rents) away from the underlying “fundamentals” throughout the 1980-2005 period; however, momentum increased after 1999....