This paper shows that rising real estate prices reduce industry productivity, because they lead to a reallocation of capital and labor towards inefficient firms. I establish that the rise in real estate value during the US housing boom relaxes firms' financial constraints. Companies borrow...

This PhD dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters in the field of macroeconomics. The first two chapters rely a large scanner data set from the United States. The data set contains detailed pricing and sales information from retail stores as well as comprehensive information on...