IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedcwq/90678.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Late Payment Fees and Nonpayment in Rental Markets, and Implications for Inflation Measurement: Theoretical Considerations and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Wesley Janson
  • Randal J. Verbrugge

Abstract

Accurate rent measurement is essential for constructing a consumer price index (CPI) and for measuring household welfare. Late payment fees and nonpayment of rent are common components of rental expenditures and thus belong in CPIs. Late payment fees are often excluded; we offer a novel critique. In the US CPI, nonpayment is ostensibly included, but, we show, severely undermeasured. Moreover, the manner of its inclusion renders the CPI extremely sensitive to nonpayment variations; we show how to fix this. Nonpayment undermeasurement suggests at least a +1 ppt overestimate in 2020 CPI shelter inflation. Timely nonpayment and late fee measurement is challenging; we offer a practical solution.

Suggested Citation

  • Wesley Janson & Randal J. Verbrugge, 2021. "Late Payment Fees and Nonpayment in Rental Markets, and Implications for Inflation Measurement: Theoretical Considerations and Evidence," Working Papers 20-22R2, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 06 Nov 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:90678
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202022r2
    Note: Revised version of Working Paper 2020-22R which was posted April 6, 2021.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202022r2
    File Function: Persistent Link
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/working-papers/2023/wp2022r2.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-wp-202022r2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "A Phillips Curve with Anchored Expectations and Short‐Term Unemployment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 111-137, February.
    2. Theodore M. Crone & Leonard I. Nakamura & Richard Voith, 2010. "Rents Have Been Rising, Not Falling, in the Postwar Period," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 628-642, August.
    3. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2020. "Measuring Real Consumption and CPI Bias under Lockdown Conditions," NBER Working Papers 27144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Brian Adams & Randal Verbrugge, 2020. "Location, Location, Structure Type: Rent Divergence within Neighborhoods," Economic Working Papers 533, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    5. W. Erwin Diewert & Kiyohiko G. Nishimura & Chihiro Shimizu & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2020. "Property Price Index," Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-4-431-55942-9.
    6. Kyoochul Kim, 2020. "Payment Performance and Residency Discounts in the Rental Housing Market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1168-1197, December.
    7. Brent W. Ambrose & N. Edward Coulson & Jiro Yoshida, 2015. "The Repeat Rent Index," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(5), pages 939-950, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Randal Verbrugge & Alan Dorfman & William Johnson & Fred Marsh III & Robert Poole & Owen Shoemaker, 2017. "Determinants of Differential Rent Changes: Mean Reversion versus the Usual Suspects," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 45(3), pages 591-627, July.
    2. Brian Adams & Lara Loewenstein & Hugh Montag & Randal J. Verbrugge, 2022. "Disentangling rent index differences: data, methods, and scope," Working Papers 22-38R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 28 Sep 2023.
    3. Ambrose, Brent W. & Coulson, N. Edward & Yoshida, Jiro, 2017. "Inflation Rates Are Very Different When Housing Rents Are Accurately Measured," HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series 71, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Gallin, Joshua & Verbrugge, Randal J., 2019. "A theory of sticky rents: Search and bargaining with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 478-519.
    6. Lopez, Luis A. & Yoshida, Jiro, 2022. "Estimating housing rent depreciation for inflation adjustments," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    7. Leonard Nakamura, 2014. "Durable Financial Regulation: Monitoring Financial Instruments as a Counterpart to Regulating Financial Institutions," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy, pages 67-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Günes Kamber & Madhusudan Mohanty & James Morley, 2020. "What drives inflation in advanced and emerging market economies?," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Inflation dynamics in Asia and the Pacific, volume 111, pages 21-36, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Karimova, Amira & Simsek, Esra & Orhan, Mehmet, 2020. "Policy implications of the Lucas Critique empirically tested along the global financial crisis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 153-172.
    10. Vijay VICTOR & Maria FEKETE FARKAS & Florence JEESON, 2018. "Inflation unemployment dynamics in Hungary – A structured cointegration and vector error correction model approach," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(2(615), S), pages 195-204, Summer.
    11. Robert Poole & Randal Verbrugge, 2007. "Explaining the Rent-OER Inflation Divergence, 1999-2006," Working Papers 410, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    12. Jennifer Peña & Elvira Prades, 2021. "Price setting in Chile: Micro evidence from consumer on-line prices during the social outbreak and Covid-19," Working Papers 2112, Banco de España.
    13. Jaravel, Xavier & O'Connell, Martin, 2020. "Real-time price indices: Inflation spike and falling product variety during the Great Lockdown," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    14. Oraby, Ramy, 2022. "The Possible Unemployment Cost of Average Inflation Below a Credible Target. A Replication Study of Svensson (American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2015)," Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(2022-2), pages 1-21.
    15. Silver Mick, 2022. "Econometric Issues in Hedonic Property Price Indices: Some Practical Help," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 153-186, March.
    16. Bentley Alan, 2022. "Rentals for Housing: A Property Fixed-Effects Estimator of Inflation from Administrative Data," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 187-211, March.
    17. Ernst, Ekkehard & Semmler, Willi & Haider, Alexander, 2017. "Debt-deflation, financial market stress and regime change – Evidence from Europe using MRVAR," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 115-139.
    18. Antonio M. Conti & Concetta Gigante, 2018. "Weakness in Italy�s core inflation and the Phillips curve: the role of labour and financial indicators," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 466, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Duncan, Roberto & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2019. "New perspectives on forecasting inflation in emerging market economies: An empirical assessment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1008-1031.
    20. Bonam, Dennis & de Haan, Jakob & van Limbergen, Duncan, 2021. "Time-varying wage Phillips curves in the euro area with a new measure for labor market slack," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 157-171.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    shelter inflation; nonpayment; eviction; COVID-19 collapse; CPI mismeasurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:90678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.