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Income distribution and housing prices: An assignment model approach

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  • Määttänen, Niku
  • Terviö, Marko

Abstract

We present a framework for studying the relation between the distributions of income and house prices that is based on an assignment model where households are heterogeneous by incomes and houses by quality. Each household owns one house and wishes to live in one house; thus everyone is potentially both a buyer and a seller. In equilibrium, the distribution of prices depends on both distributions in a tractable but nontrivial manner. We show how the impact of increased income inequality on house prices depends on the shapes of the distributions, and can be inferred from data. In our empirical application we find that increased income inequality between 1998 and 2007 had a negative impact on average house prices in six US metropolitan areas.

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  • Määttänen, Niku & Terviö, Marko, 2014. "Income distribution and housing prices: An assignment model approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 381-410.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:151:y:2014:i:c:p:381-410
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2014.01.003
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    2. Karolien De Bruyne & Jan Van Hove, 2013. "Explaining the spatial variation in housing prices: an economic geography approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(13), pages 1673-1689, May.
    3. Charles Nathanson, 2019. "Trickle-Down Housing Economics," 2019 Meeting Papers 537, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Schetter, Ulrich & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "Globalization and the Concentration of Talent," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Takaaki Ohnishi & Takayuki Mizuno & Chihiro Shimizu & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2012. "Detecting Real Estate Bubbles: A New Approach Based on the Cross-Sectional Dispersion of Property Prices," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 006, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics, revised Apr 2013.
    6. Torres-Tellez, Jonathan & Montero Soler, Alberto, 2021. "El precio de la vivienda en España tras el inicio de la crisis económica: un análisis empírico || Housing prices in Spain after the beginning of the financial crisis: An empirical analysis," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 32(1), pages 376-391, December.
    7. Morten Olsen & Joshua Gottlieb & David Hemous & Jeffrey Clemens, 2017. "The Spill-over Effects of Top Income Inequality," 2017 Meeting Papers 332, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Hassani, Hossein & Yeganegi, Mohammad Reza & Gupta, Rangan, 2019. "Does inequality really matter in forecasting real housing returns of the United Kingdom?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 18-25.
    9. Yu Zhou & Shigehiro Serizawa, 2019. "Minimum price equilibrium in the assignment market," ISER Discussion Paper 1047, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    10. Andrea Eisfeldt & Andrew Demers, 2015. "Total Returns to Single Family Rentals," NBER Working Papers 21804, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2015. "Urban Land Use," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 467-560, Elsevier.
    12. Takaaki Ohnishi & Takayuki Mizuno & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2019. "House Price Dispersion in Boom-Bust Cycles: Evidence from Tokyo," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 008, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    13. Graeme Guthrie, 2023. "Land Hoarding and Urban Development," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 753-793, November.
    14. Jan Rouwendal & Florian Sniekers & Ning Jia, 2023. "Borrowing constraints, housing tenure choice and buy-to-let investors: An assignment model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-005/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Carl Gaigné & Hans R.A. Koster & Fabien Moizeau & Jacques-François Thisse, 2017. "Amenities and the Social Structure of Cities," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 2017-07, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    16. Ruiqiao Bai & Jacqueline C. K. Lam & Victor O. K. Li, 2023. "What dictates income in New York City? SHAP analysis of income estimation based on Socio-economic and Spatial Information Gaussian Processes (SSIG)," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    17. Berisha, Edmond & Meszaros, John & Gupta, Rangan, 2023. "Income inequality and house prices across US states," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 192-197.
    18. Thomas Goda & Chris Stewart & Alejandro Torres García, 2016. "Absolute Income Inequality and Rising House Prices," Documentos de Trabajo CIEF 15247, Universidad EAFIT.
    19. Takaaki Ohnishi & Takayuki Mizuno & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2019. "House Price Dispersion in Boom-Bust Cycles: Evidence from Tokyo," CARF F-Series CARF-F-461, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    20. D'Acci, Luca S., 2023. "Is housing price distribution across cities, scale invariant? Fractal distribution of settlements' house prices as signature of self-organized complexity," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    21. Abebe Hailemariam & Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Russell Smyth & Kingsley Tetteh Baako, 2021. "Income inequality and housing prices in the very long‐run," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(1), pages 295-321, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Assignment models; Housing; Income distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

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