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What drives housing prices?

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Author Info
James A. Kahn
Abstract

This paper develops a growth model with land, housing services, and other goods that is capable of explaining a substantial portion of the movements in housing prices over the past forty years. Under certainty, the model exhibits a balanced aggregate growth, but with underlying sectoral change. The paper introduces a Markov regime-switching specification for productivity growth in the nonhousing sector and shows that such regime switches are a plausible candidate for explaining - both qualitatively and quantitatively - the large low-frequency changes in housing price trends. In particular, the model shows how housing prices can have a "bubbly" appearance in which housing wealth rises faster than income for an extended period, then collapses and experiences an extended decline. The paper also uses micro data to calibrate a key cross-elasticity parameter that governs the relationship between productivity growth and home price appreciation. Combined with a realistic model of learning about the productivity process, the model is able to capture the medium- and low-frequency fluctuations of both price and quantity from the residential sector. Finally, the model suggests that the current downturn in the housing sector was triggered by a productivity slowdown that may have begun in 2004, an event that could reasonably have been viewed as highly unlikely by investors and mortgage issuers in the early part of the decade.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Staff Reports with number 345.

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Date of creation: 2008
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:345

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Keywords: Housing - Prices ; Productivity ; Econometric models ; Markov processes;

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  1. Benhabib, Jess & Rogerson, Richard & Wright, Randall, 1990. "Homework In Macroeconomics Ii: Aggregate Fluctuations," Working Papers 90-18, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University. [Downloadable!]
  2. Greenwood, J. & Hercowitz, Z., 1991. "The Allocation of Capital and Time Over the Business Cycle," RCER Working Papers 268, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
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  3. Hanushek, Eric A & Quigley, John M, 1980. "What Is the Price Elasticity of Housing Demand?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 449-54, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Piazzesi, Monika & Schneider, Martin & Tuzel, Selale, 2007. "Housing, consumption and asset pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 531-569, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Ngai, Liwa Rachel & Pissarides, Christopher, 2004. "Structural Change in a Multi-Sector Model of Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 4763, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing high house prices: bubbles, fundamentals, and misperceptions," Staff Reports 218, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Kahn, James A. & Rich, Robert W., 2007. "Tracking the new economy: Using growth theory to detect changes in trend productivity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1670-1701, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Uhlig, H., 1995. "A toolkit for analyzing nonlinear dynamic stochastic models easily," Discussion Paper 97, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2006. "Can Housing Collateral Explain Long-Run Swings in Asset Returns?," NBER Working Papers 12766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2003-2), pages 299-362. [Downloadable!]
  11. Morris A. Davis & Jonathan Heathcote, 2005. "Housing And The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(3), pages 751-784, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. N. Gregory Mankiw & David N. Weil, 1990. "The Baby Boom, The Baby Bust, and the Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 2794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Robert F. Martin, 2005. "The baby boom: predictability in house prices and interest rates," International Finance Discussion Papers 847, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  14. Rochelle M. Edge & Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2004. "Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-21, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  15. Baumol, William J, 1972. "Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 150, March.
  16. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," NBER Working Papers 11129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2006. "Why Has House Price Dispersion Gone Up?," NBER Working Papers 12538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Jonathan Heathcote & Morris Davis, 2004. "The Price and Quantity of Residential Land in the United States," 2004 Meeting Papers 32, Society for Economic Dynamics.
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  19. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2007. " Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," CDMA Conference Paper Series 0705, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis. [Downloadable!]
  20. Marjorie Flavin & Shinobu Nakagawa, 2004. "A Model of Housing in the Presence of Adjustment Costs: A Structural Interpretation of Habit Persistence," NBER Working Papers 10458, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Ellwood, David T, 1979. "An Empirical Reconciliation of Micro and Grouped Estimates of the Demand for Housing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(2), pages 199-205, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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