IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/21-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional Divergence and House Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Greg Howard

    (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

  • Jack Liebersohn

    (University of California, Irvine)

Abstract

We document a new fact: regional divergence, the rate at which rich states grow faster than poor states, explains most U.S. house price movements since 1939, including the post-2000 boom-bust-boom cycle. An industry-share instrument provides evidence the relationship is causal, implying the location of economic growth affects national house prices. We propose a model to learn why regional divergence and house prices are related. In the model, high interstate inequality raises rents on average because relative demand for living in a high-income state increases and housing supply in low-income states is elastic. Regional divergence leads to higher expected future interstate inequality, which implies higher expected future rents, and therefore, higher current house prices. The model accurately predicts rents since 1929, which are quite different than prices, as well as cross-sectional moments of prices, rents, construction, and migration. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • Greg Howard & Jack Liebersohn, 2023. "Regional Divergence and House Prices," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 49, pages 312-350, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:21-308
    DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2022.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2022.10.002
    Download Restriction: Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and institutional members. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.red.2022.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2022. "Credit Supply and Housing Speculation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 680-719.
    2. Katharina Knoll & Moritz Schularick & Thomas Steger, 2017. "No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 331-353, February.
    3. Berry, Christopher R. & Glaeser, Edward L., 2005. "Divergence of Human Capital Levels across Cities," Working Paper Series rwp05-057, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Kirill Borusyak & Peter Hull & Xavier Jaravel, 2022. "Quasi-Experimental Shift-Share Research Designs [Sampling-based vs. Design-based Uncertainty in Regression Analysis]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 181-213.
    5. Luis Armona & Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Home Price Expectations and Behaviour: Evidence from a Randomized Information Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1371-1410.
    6. Enrico Moretti, 2013. "Real Wage Inequality," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 65-103, January.
    7. Albert Saiz, 2010. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1253-1296.
    8. Dong, Ding & Liu, Zheng & Wang, Pengfei & Zha, Tao, 2022. "A theory of housing demand shocks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    9. Ben-David, Itzhak & Towbin, Pascal & Weber, Sebastian, 2019. "Expectations During the U.S. Housing Boom: Inferring Beliefs from Actions," Working Paper Series 2019-8, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    10. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2011. "House Prices, Home Equity-Based Borrowing, and the US Household Leverage Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2132-2156, August.
    11. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle, August.
    12. Filip Rozsypal & Kathrin Schlafmann, 2023. "Overpersistence Bias in Individual Income Expectations and Its Aggregate Implications," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 331-371, October.
    13. Gelain, Paolo & Lansing, Kevin J., 2014. "House prices, expectations, and time-varying fundamentals," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 3-25.
    14. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    15. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2020. "The effects of quasi-random monetary experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 22-40.
    16. Facundo Alvaredo & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2017. "Global Inequality Dynamics: New Findings from WID.world," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 404-409, May.
    17. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    18. Emi Nakamura & J?n Steinsson, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 753-792, March.
    19. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2188-2244.
    20. Timothy J. Bartik & Nathan Sotherland, 2019. "Local Job Multipliers in the United States: Variation with Local Characteristics and with High-Tech Shocks," Upjohn Working Papers 19-301, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    21. Daniel Greenwald & Adam Guren, 2019. "Do Credit Conditions Move House Prices?," 2019 Meeting Papers 1334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    22. Adam M Guren & Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2021. "Housing Wealth Effects: The Long View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(2), pages 669-707.
    23. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    24. Christopher L. Foote & Kristopher S. Gerardi & Paul S. Willen, 2012. "Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis," NBER Working Papers 18082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. repec:oup:ecpoli:v:26:y:2011:i:66:p:233-283 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Isaac Sorkin & Henry Swift, 2020. "Bartik Instruments: What, When, Why, and How," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2586-2624, August.
    27. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    28. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2015. "Betting the house," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 2-18.
    29. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2010. "Why Has House Price Dispersion Gone Up?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1567-1606.
    30. John B. Taylor, 2007. "Housing and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 463-476.
    31. Owen Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 1999. "Leverage and House-Price Dynamics in U.S. Cities," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(3), pages 498-514, Autumn.
    32. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The divergence of human capital levels across cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(3), pages 407-444, August.
    33. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Divergence of Human Capital Levels Across Cities," NBER Working Papers 11617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Ambrose, Brent W. & Thibodeau, Thomas G., 2004. "Have the GSE affordable housing goals increased the supply of mortgage credit?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 263-273, May.
    35. James G. MacKinnon, 2010. "Critical Values For Cointegration Tests," Working Paper 1227, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    36. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    37. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    38. Devin Bunten, 2017. "Is the Rent Too High? Aggregate Implications of Local Land-Use Regulation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-064, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    39. Roback, Jennifer, 1982. "Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1257-1278, December.
    40. Glaeser, Edward L. & Gyourko, Joseph & Saiz, Albert, 2008. "Housing supply and housing bubbles," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 198-217, September.
    41. Margaret Jacobson, 2019. "Beliefs, Aggregate Risk, and the U.S. Housing Boom," 2019 Meeting Papers 1549, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    42. James M. Poterba, 1984. "Tax Subsidies to Owner-Occupied Housing: An Asset-Market Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(4), pages 729-752.
    43. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2009. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1449-1496.
    44. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2017. "Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 76-90.
    45. Andrii Parkhomenko, 2018. "The Rise of Housing Supply Regulation in the US: Local Causes and Aggregate Implications," 2018 Meeting Papers 275, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    46. Davidoff, Thomas, 2016. "Supply Constraints Are Not Valid Instrumental Variables for Home Prices Because They Are Correlated With Many Demand Factors," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 177-206, December.
    47. Monika Piazzesi & Martin Schneider, 2009. "Momentum Traders in the Housing Market: Survey Evidence and a Search Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 406-411, May.
    48. Andy C. C. Kwan & John A. Cotsomitis, 2004. "Can Consumer Attitudes Forecast Household Spending in the United States? Further Evidence from the Michigan Survey of Consumers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(1), pages 136-144, July.
    49. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501.
    50. Jane Dokko & Brian M. Doyle & Michael T. Kiley & Jinill Kim & Shane Sherlund & Jae Sim & Skander Van Den Heuvel, 2011. "Monetary policy and the global housing bubble [Assessing dynamic efficiency: theory and evidence]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 26(66), pages 237-287.
    51. Charles G. Nathanson & Eric Zwick, 2018. "Arrested Development: Theory and Evidence of Supply‐Side Speculation in the Housing Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(6), pages 2587-2633, December.
    52. Andy C. C. Kwan & John A. Cotsomitis, 2004. "Can Consumer Attitudes Forecast Household Spending in the United States? Further Evidence from the Michigan Survey of Consumers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(1), pages 136-144, July.
    53. David Albouy & Gabriel Ehrlich & Yingyi Liu, 2016. "Housing Demand, Cost-of-Living Inequality, and the Affordability Crisis," NBER Working Papers 22816, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    54. 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.
    55. Greg Howard, 2020. "The Migration Accelerator: Labor Mobility, Housing, and Demand," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 147-179, October.
    56. Martin Schneider & Monika Piazzesi, 2009. "Momentum traders in a search model of the housing market," 2009 Meeting Papers 1266, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    57. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich & Adam M. Guren & Timothy J. McQuade, 2021. "The 2000s Housing Cycle With 2020 Hindsight: A Neo-Kindlebergerian View," NBER Working Papers 29140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    58. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    59. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Divergence of Human Capital Levels across Cities," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2091, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    60. Mayo, Stephen K., 1981. "Theory and estimation in the economics of housing demand," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 95-116, July.
    61. Tim Landvoigt, 2017. "Housing Demand During the Boom: The Role of Expectations and Credit Constraints," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(6), pages 1865-1902.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefano Colonnello & Roberto Marfè & Qizhou Xiong, 2021. "Housing Yields," Working Papers 2021:21, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari", revised 2021.
    2. Dooruj Rambaccussing, 2021. "The price–rent ratio inequality in Scottish Cities: fluctuations in discount rates and expected rent growth," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(9), pages 1-15, September.

    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. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. Greg Howard & Carl Liebersohn, 2019. "What Explains U.S. House Prices? Regional Income Divergence," 2019 Meeting Papers 1054, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Itzhak Ben-David & Pascal Towbin & Sebastian Weber, 2019. "Inferring Expectations from Observables: Evidence from the Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 25702, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Knut Are Aastveit & Bruno Albuquerque & André K. Anundsen, 2023. "Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1749-1783, October.
    5. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    6. Margaret Jacobson, 2019. "Beliefs, Aggregate Risk, and the U.S. Housing Boom," 2019 Meeting Papers 1549, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Dieci, Roberto & Westerhoff, Frank, 2016. "Heterogeneous expectations, boom-bust housing cycles, and supply conditions: A nonlinear economic dynamics approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 21-44.
    8. Knut Are Aastveit & André K. Anundsen, 2022. "Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy in Regional Housing Markets," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 499-529, October.
    9. Zhenyu Gao & Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2020. "Learning about the Neighborhood," NBER Working Papers 26907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Büchler, Simon & Ehrlich, Maximilian v. & Schöni, Olivier, 2021. "The amplifying effect of capitalization rates on housing supply," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    11. Favara, Giovanni & Song, Zheng, 2014. "House price dynamics with dispersed information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 350-382.
    12. Flannery, Mark J. & Lin, Leming & Wang, Luxi, 2022. "Housing booms and bank growth," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    13. Glaeser, Edward L. & Nathanson, Charles G., 2015. "Housing Bubbles," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 701-751, Elsevier.
    14. Edward L. Glaeser & Charles G. Nathanson, 2014. "Housing Bubbles," NBER Working Papers 20426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Paolo Gelain & Kevin J. Lansing & Gisle J. Natvik, 2018. "Explaining the Boom–Bust Cycle in the U.S. Housing Market: A Reverse‐Engineering Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(8), pages 1751-1783, December.
    16. Benjamin Austin & Edward Glaeser & Lawrence Summers, 2018. "Jobs for the Heartland: Place-Based Policies in 21st-Century America," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(1 (Spring), pages 151-255.
    17. Edlund, Lena & Machado, Cecilia & Sviatschi, Maria, 2015. "Bright Minds, Big Rent: Gentrification and the Rising Returns to Skill," IZA Discussion Papers 9502, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2017. "Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 76-90.
    19. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2012. "Why Has Regional Convergence in the U.S. Stopped?," Working Paper Series rwp12-028, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    20. Dieci, Roberto & Westerhoff, Frank, 2015. "Heterogeneous expectations, boom-bust housing cycles, and supply conditions: A nonlinear dynamics approach," BERG Working Paper Series 99, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional inequality; expectations; house price-rent ratio;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

    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:red:issued:21-308. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.