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The long-run relationship between house prices and income: evidence from local housing markets

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Author Info
Joshua Gallin
Abstract

The proposition that "housing prices can't continue to outpace growth in household income" (Wall Street Journal; July 25, 2002) is the received wisdom among many housing-market observers. More formally, many in the housing literature argue that house prices and income are cointegrated. In this paper, I show that the data do not support this view. Standard tests using 27 years of national-level data do not find evidence of cointegration. However, it is known that tests for cointegration have low power, especially in small samples. I use panel-data tests for cointegration that have been shown to be more powerful than their standard time-series counterparts to test for cointegration in a panel of 95 metro areas over 23 years. Using a bootstrap approach to allow for cross-correlations in city-level house-price shocks, I show that even these more powerful tests do not reject the hypothesis of no cointegration. Thus the error-correction specification for house prices and income commonly found in the literature may be inappropriate.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 2003-17.

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Date of creation: 2003
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2003-17

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Keywords: Housing Housing - Prices

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Chihwa Kao & Suzanne McCoskey, 1997. "A Residual-Based Test Of The Null Of Cointegration In Panel Data," Econometrics 9711002, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Quah, D., 1993. "Exploiting Cross Section Variation for Unit Root Inference in Dynamic Data," Papers 549, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
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  3. Banerjee, Anindya, 1999. " Panel Data Unit Roots and Cointegration: An Overview," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 607-29, Special I. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Pierre Perron & Robert J. Shiller, 1984. "Testing the Random Walk Hypothesis: Power Versus Frequency of Observation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 732, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Engle, Robert F & Granger, Clive W J, 1987. "Co-integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 251-76, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. James M. Poterba, 1992. "House Price Dynamics: The Role of Tax Policy and Demography," NBER Reprints 1706, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Meen, Geoffrey, 2002. "The Time-Series Behavior of House Prices: A Transatlantic Divide?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-23, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. David Reifschneider & Robert Tetlow & John Williams, 1999. "Aggregate disturbances, monetary policy, and the macroeconomy: the FRB/US perspective," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Jan, pages 1-19. [Downloadable!]
  9. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2002. "The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1948, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. " A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-52, Special I. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Dennis R. Capozza & Patric H. Hendershott & Charlotte Mack & Christopher J. Mayer, 2002. "Determinants of Real House Price Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 9262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Malpezzi, Stephen, 1999. "A Simple Error Correction Model of House Prices," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 27-62, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Pasaran, M.H. & Im, K.S. & Shin, Y., 1995. "Testing for Unit Roots in Heterogeneous Panels," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9526, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Sean Holly & M. Hashem Pesaran & Takashi Yamagata, 2006. "A Spatio-Temporal Model of House Prices in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 2338, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Balázs Égert, 2007. "Real Convergence, Price Level Convergence and Inflation Differentials in Europe," Working Papers 138, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank). [Downloadable!]
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  3. Davis, Morris & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2005. "The Price and Quantity of Residential Land in the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 5333, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Sergio Clavijo & Michel Janna & Santiago Muñoz, 2004. "LA VIVIENDA EN COLOMBIA: Sus Determinantes Socio-Económicos y Financieros," BORRADORES DE ECONOMIA 003099, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA. [Downloadable!]
  5. Calvin Schnure, 2005. "Boom-Bust Cycles in Housing: The Changing Role of Financial Structure," IMF Working Papers 05/200, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  6. Cabray L. Haines & Richard J. Rosen, 2007. "Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q I, pages 16-35. [Downloadable!]
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