IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-19-01106.html

Income inequality and house prices in the United States: A panel VAR analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Kyungmin Kim

    (Keimyung University)

Abstract

This paper examines empirically the dynamic relationship between upper-end measures of income inequality, such as top 1% income share, and house price-to-income ratio (HPIR) by employing panel VAR technique over the period from 1975 to 2015 using a panel of annual U.S. state-level data. Impulse response analysis provides that inequality positively affects HPIR. This finding is robust to changes in the measures of inequality used, as well as to VAR order. In contrast, there exist no significant impacts of HPIR shocks on inequality in the baseline model. The PVAR in the reverse order shows that HPIR has a positive contemporaneous effect on inequality but the effect dies out within two years. This finding implies that the positive correlation between inequality and house prices is mainly driven by the positive effect of inequality on house prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyungmin Kim, 2020. "Income inequality and house prices in the United States: A panel VAR analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2111-2120.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-01106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2020/Volume40/EB-20-V40-I3-P184.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bostic, Raphael & Gabriel, Stuart & Painter, Gary, 2009. "Housing wealth, financial wealth, and consumption: New evidence from micro data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 79-89, January.
    2. Thomas Goda & Chris Stewart & Alejandro Torres Garc�a, 2016. "Absolute Income Inequality and Rising House Prices," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 15247, Universidad EAFIT.
    3. Zhang, Chuanchuan & Jia, Shen & Yang, Rudai, 2016. "Housing affordability and housing vacancy in China: The role of income inequality," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 4-14.
    4. 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(2), pages 299-362.
    5. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    6. Matlack, Janna L. & Vigdor, Jacob L., 2008. "Do rising tides lift all prices? Income inequality and housing affordability," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 212-224, September.
    7. Mark W. Frank, 2009. "Inequality And Growth In The United States: Evidence From A New State‐Level Panel Of Income Inequality Measures," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 55-68, January.
    8. Milorad Kovacevic, 2010. "Measurement of Inequality In Human Development - A Review," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-35, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    9. Bebonchu Atems & Jason Jones, 2015. "Income inequality and economic growth: a panel VAR approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1541-1561, June.
    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.
    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. Bebonchu Atems & Jason Jones, 2015. "Income inequality and economic growth: a panel VAR approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1541-1561, June.
    2. Ryan H. Murphy & Colin O’Reilly, 2019. "Applying panel vector autoregression to institutions, human capital, and output," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 1633-1652, November.
    3. Atems, Bebonchu, 2018. "Regional heterogeneity in the relationship between inequality and growth: Evidence from panel vector autoregressions," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 41-47.
    4. Duan, Kun & Zhang, Liya & Chen, Shuyun & Urquhart, Andrew, 2025. "Heterogeneous housing bubbles and monetary policy," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    5. Bebonchu Atems & Grayden Shand, 2018. "An empirical analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and income inequality," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 905-922, December.
    6. Dimitris Anastasiou & Panayotis Kapopoulos & Kalliopi Maria Zekente, 2025. "Housing Affordability, Tourism Activity and Income Inequality: Friends or Foes?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 1255-1280, September.
    7. Bebonchu Atems, 2020. "Identifying the Dynamic Effects of Income Inequality on Crime," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(4), pages 751-782, August.
    8. Nikos Benos & Stelios Karagiannis, 2018. "Inequality And Growth In The United States: Why Physical And Human Capital Matter," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 572-619, January.
    9. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Anamaria Diana Sova & Robert Sova, 2024. "The Covid‐19 pandemic and European trade flows: Evidence from a dynamic panel model," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 2563-2580, July.
    10. Urrunaga, Roberto & Aparicio, Carlos, 2012. "Infrastructure and economic growth in Peru," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    11. Holger Zemanek & Ansgar Belke & Gunther Schnabl, 2009. "Current Account Imbalances and Structural Adjustment in the Euro Area: How to Rebalance Competitiveness," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 895, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Atems, Bebonchu, 2019. "The effects of government spending shocks: Evidence from U.S. states," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 65-80.
    13. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph Nnanna & Paul N. Acha-Anyi, 2021. "The Openness Hypothesis in the Context of Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Moderating Role of Trade Dynamics on FDI," The International Trade Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 336-359, July.
    14. Dierk Herzer & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "Inequality and growth: evidence from panel cointegration," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(4), pages 489-503, December.
    15. Nara Monkam & Charles Shaaba Saba, 2025. "Fiscal Autonomy and the Path to Sustainable Local Economic Development: A Multilevel Municipal Analysis in South Africa," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 7336-7362, October.
    16. Dincecco, Mark & Katz, Gabriel, 2012. "State Capacity and Long-Run Performance," MPRA Paper 38299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Kola Benson Ajeigbe & Fortune Ganda, 2024. "Leveraging Food Security and Environmental Sustainability in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from a Global Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-22, September.
    18. Holly, Sean & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Yamagata, Takashi, 2010. "A spatio-temporal model of house prices in the USA," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(1), pages 160-173, September.
    19. Baumann Robert & Engelhardt Bryan & Matheson Victor A., 2012. "Employment Effects of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 232(3), pages 308-317, June.
    20. Bottasso, Anna & Castagnetti, Carolina & Conti, Maurizio, 2013. "And yet they Co-move! Public capital and productivity in OECD," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 713-729.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-01106. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.