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Irreversibility, Uncertainty and Housing Investment

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  • William Miles

Abstract

Housing represents a form of “irreversible” investment. Theoretically, increased uncertainty should lower housing investment. Empirically, finding a proxy for uncertainty has proven problematic. Some recent papers have investigated the effect of uncertainty on real estate investment, with varying proxies for uncertainty and mixed results. This paper employs a technique used in modern macroeconomic studies, the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity-in-Mean model, which has been shown to correspond as closely as any known measure to theoretical concepts of uncertainty. Results indicate that uncertainty indeed has a negative impact on housing starts. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

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  • William Miles, 2009. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty and Housing Investment," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 173-182, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jrefec:v:38:y:2009:i:2:p:173-182
    DOI: 10.1007/s11146-007-9087-x
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    3. Carlos Cañizares Martínez & Gabe J. de Bondt & Arne Gieseck, 2023. "Forecasting housing investment," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 543-565, April.
    4. Bruce Morley & Dennis Thomas, 2016. "An Empirical Analysis of UK House Price Risk Variation by Property Type," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 6, pages 45-56, May.
    5. Lu, Chien-Lin & Liao, Wen-Chi & Peng, Chien-Wen, 2020. "Developers’ perspectives on timing to build: Evidence from microdata of land acquisition and development," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    6. Christidou Maria & Fountas Stilianos, 2018. "Uncertainty in the housing market: evidence from US states," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 1-17, April.
    7. Gottlieb, Paul D. & O’Donnell, Anthony & Rudel, Thomas & O’Neill, Karen & McDermott, Melanie, 2012. "Determinants of local housing growth in a multi-jurisdictional region, along with a test for nonmarket zoning," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 296-309.
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    12. Christos S. Savva & Nektarios A. Michail, 2017. "Modelling house price volatility states in Cyprus with switching ARCH models," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 11(1), pages 69-82, June.
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