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Housing prices and import competition

Author

Listed:
  • Sheida Teimouri

    (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse)

  • Joachim Zietz

    (EBS University of Business and Law)

Abstract

We examine one of the secondary effects of the import surge from China in the last few decades: its potentially depressing impact on house price appreciations. To identify a causal impact, we use the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China in October 2000 as our exogenous treatment event. We consider housing prices for 685 US commuting zones (CZs) in a panel data setting for the years 1990–2020. We find that the 2000 PNTR trade event caused house prices to appreciate about 7 percent less in highly import-exposed CZs within 5–6 years of the trade event and that the price impact has persisted through 2020. The size of the average impact is highly robust to various sensitivity checks. We also show that the price effect of the 2000 PNTR event varied significantly across CZs with different import exposure to China and with different economic characteristics. In some areas, such as around the Great Lakes and parts of Alabama, house prices appreciated by only about half as much between 2000 and 2020 (

Suggested Citation

  • Sheida Teimouri & Joachim Zietz, 2025. "Housing prices and import competition," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 253-280, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:68:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s00181-024-02645-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-024-02645-5
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    House prices; US commuting zones; Chinese import competition; PNTR; Panel data analysis; Treatment heterogeneity;
    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
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

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