Current explanations for the high rate of default and foreclosure in the U.S. emphasize house price fluctuations and lax lending criteria. Another explanation for default and foreclosure, which has generally been neglected in the academic literature but not by the FBI, is fraud. One impediment...

This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets and how they vary with neighborhood racial composition. It overcomes the shortcomings of the data used in previous studies. It is...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between school quality and information disclosure in housing markets. When presented with the option of identifying their local public school in a real estate listing, we find that sellers with homes assigned to higher-performing schools are more...

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...

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...

This paper specifies and estimates a structural model of home seller behavior. The model is an application of search theory to housing and is estimated using method of moments. The estimation method uncovers an analytical closed-form relationship between reduced-form coefficients of hedonic and...