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The Benefits of the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction

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Author Info
Edward L. Glaeser
Jesse M. Shapiro

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Abstract

The home mortgage interest deduction creates incentives to buy more housing and to become a homeowner, and the case for the deduction rests on social benefits from housing consumption and homeownership. There is little evidence suggesting large externalities from the level of housing consumption, but there appear to be externalities from homeownership. Externalities from living around homeowners are far too small to justify the deduction. Externalities from homeownership are larger, but the home mortgage interest deduction is a particularly poor instrument for encouraging homeownership since it is targeted at the wealthy, who are almost always homeowners. The irrelevance of the deduction is supported by the time series which shows that the ownership subsidy moves with inflation and has changed significantly between 1960 and today, but the homeownership rate has been essentially constant.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9284.

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Date of creation: Oct 2002
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9284

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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. Poterba, James M, 1984. "Tax Subsidies to Owner-occupied Housing: An Asset-Market Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 729-52, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Rosen, Harvey S & Rosen, Kenneth T, 1980. "Federal Taxes and Homeownership: Evidence from Time Series," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 59-75, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Green, Richard K. & White, Michelle J., 1997. "Measuring the Benefits of Homeowning: Effects on Children," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 441-461, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Glaeser, Edward L. & Sacerdote, Bruce, 2000. "The Social Consequences of Housing," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-23, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Voith, Richard & Gyourko, Joseph, 2002. "Capitalization of federal taxes, the relative price of housing, and urban form: density and sorting effects," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 673-690, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Epple, Dennis, 1987. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Estimating Demand and Supply Functions for Differentiated Products," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 59-80, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Edwin S. Mills, 1987. "Dividing up the investment pie: have we overinvested in housing?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Mar, pages 13-23. [Downloadable!]
  8. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2001. "Urban Decline and Durable Housing," NBER Working Papers 8598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Poterba, James M, 1992. "Taxation and Housing: Old Questions, New Answers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 237-42, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Kanemoto, Yoshitsugu, 1990. "Contract types in the property market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 5-22, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. 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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  12. Goodman, John Jr. & Ittner, John B., 1992. "The accuracy of home owners' estimates of house value," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 339-357, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Henderson, J Vernon & Ioannides, Yannis M, 1983. "A Model of Housing Tenure Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 98-113, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Harvey S. Rosen, 1985. "Housing Behavior and the Experimental Housing Allowance Program: What Have We Learned?," NBER Working Papers 0657, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. DiPasquale, Denise & Glaeser, Edward L., 1999. "Incentives and Social Capital: Are Homeowners Better Citizens?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 354-384, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Martin Gervais & Manish Pandey, 2005. "Who Cares about Mortgage Interest Deductibility?," University of Western Ontario, RBC Financial Group Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20059, University of Western Ontario, RBC Financial Group Economic Policy Research Institute. [Downloadable!]
  2. Bajari, Patrick & Benkard, C. Lanier & Krainer, John, 2004. "House Prices and Consumer Welfare," Research Papers 1840, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Emmanuel Saez & Joel B. Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2009. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," NBER Working Papers 15012, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jordan Rappaport, 2005. "The shared fortunes of cities and suburbs," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q III, pages 33-60. [Downloadable!]
  5. Sang-Wook Stanley Cho, 2007. "Household Wealth Accumulation and Portfolio Choices in Korea," Discussion Papers 2007-26, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  6. Raj Chetty, 2004. "Consumption Commitments, Unemployment Durations, and Local Risk Aversion," NBER Working Papers 10211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Jonas D. M. Fisher & Martin Gervais, 2009. "Why has home ownership fallen among the young?," Working Paper Series WP-09-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Casper Ewijk & Bas Jacobs & Ruud Mooij, 2007. "Welfare Effects of Fiscal Subsidies on Home Ownership in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 323-336, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. David Y. Albouy, 2008. "The Unequal Geographic Burden of Federal Taxation," NBER Working Papers 13995, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Edward L. Glaeser & Matthew E. Kahn, 2003. "Sprawl and Urban Growth," NBER Working Papers 9733, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003. "Smart Cities: Explaining the Relationship between City Growth and Human Capital," Urban/Regional 0309001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  12. Sang-Wook Stanley Cho, 2007. "Accounting for Lifecycle Wealth Accumulation: The Role of Housing Institution," Discussion Papers 2007-27, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  13. Kurz, Claudia & Hoffmann, Johannes, 2004. "A rental-equivalence index for owner-occupied housing in West Germany 1985 to 1998," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2004,08, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  14. Stephen Cauley & Andrey Pavlov & Eduardo Schwartz, 2007. "Homeownership as a Constraint on Asset Allocation," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 283-311, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Randal Verbrugge, 2009. "The Puzzling Divergence of Rents and User Costs, 1980-2004," Working Papers 422, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Downloadable!]
  16. Antonia Díaz & Maria J. Luengo-Prado, 2006. "On The User Cost and Homeownership," Working Papers 2006-14, FEDEA. [Downloadable!]
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