IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/may/mayecw/n135020.pdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Earnings Uncertainty, Risk-Aversion and Homeownership

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Diaz-Serrano

    (Economics Dept, NUI Maynooth)

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the effect of labour income uncertainty on the probability of homeownership in Germany and Spain. This study is motivated by two facts. Firstly, theoretical models tend to provide ambiguous results in this issue. Secondly, there is limited previous empirical evidence and the existing focuses exclusively on the US housing market. We claim that more international evidence is necessary in order to disentangle this puzzle. We develop a simple theoretical formula that highlights the pivotal role of risk attitudes in the housing tenure decisions that also allow us to introduce the concept of "skewness affection" as a relevant phenomenon. To carry out this test we propose an income uncertainty measure based on panel data labour income equations. We observe that households facing increasing income uncertainty display preference for renting while those located in a positively skewed income distribution show a greater propensity for homeownership. Income uncertainty analysis in housing decisions has important implications for the design of public housing policies and also for the design of private mortgage insurance products.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Diaz-Serrano, 2003. "Earnings Uncertainty, Risk-Aversion and Homeownership," Economics Department Working Paper Series n135020.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    • Handle: RePEc:may:mayecw:n135020.pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.maynoothuniversity.ie/mayecw-files/N1350204.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hartog, Joop & Vijverberg, Wim P., 2002. "Do Wages Really Compensate for Risk Aversion and Skewness Affection?," IZA Discussion Papers 426, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Luis Diaz‐Serrano & Joop Hartog & Helena Skyt Nielsen, 2008. "Compensating Wage Differentials for Schooling Risk in Denmark," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 711-731, December.
    3. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    4. Bruce Bradbury, 1993. "Male Pre and Post Tax Wage Inequality: A Six Country Comparison," LIS Working papers 90, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Chung, Eui-Chul & Haurin, Donald R., 2002. "Housing choices and uncertainty: the impact of stochastic events," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 193-216, September.
    6. Gordon Green & John Coder & Paul Ryscavage, 1992. "INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF EARNINGS INEQUALITY FOR MEN IN THE 1980s," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 38(1), pages 1-15, March.
    7. Barakova, Irina & Bostic, Raphael W. & Calem, Paul S. & Wachter, Susan M., 2003. "Does credit quality matter for homeownership?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 318-336, December.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Rosen, Harvey S & Rosen, Kenneth T & Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1984. "Housing Tenure, Uncertainty, and Taxation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(3), pages 405-416, August.
    10. Ioannides, Yannis M., 1979. "Temporal risks and the tenure decision in housing markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 293-297.
    11. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Gwilym Pryce & Margaret Keoghan, 2002. "Unemployment insurance for mortgage borrowers: is it viable and does it cover those most in need?," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 87-114.
    13. Robst, John & Deitz, Richard & McGoldrick, KimMarie, 1999. "Income variability, uncertainty and housing tenure choice1," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 219-229, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Henderson, J. Vernon & Ioannides, Yannis M., 1987. "Owner occupancy: Investment vs consumption demand," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 228-241, March.
    16. Joop Hartog & Erik Plug & Luis Diaz Serrano & Jose Vieira, 2003. "Risk compensation in wages – a replication," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 639-647, July.
    17. Peter Neuteboom, 2003. "A European comparison of the costs and risks of mortgages for owner-occupiers," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 155-171.
    18. Haurin Donald R. & Hendershott Patric H. & Kim Dongwook, 1994. "Housing Decisions of American Youth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 28-45, January.
    19. Fu, Yuming, 1995. "Uncertainty, liquidity, and housing choices," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 223-236, April.
    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. Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2004. "Labour Income Uncertainty, Risk Aversion and Home Ownership," IZA Discussion Papers 1008, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2005. "Labor income uncertainty, skewness and homeownership: A panel data study for Germany and Spain," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 156-176, July.
    3. Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2005. "On the negative relationship between labor income uncertainty and homeownership: Risk-aversion vs. credit constraints," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 109-126, June.
    4. Luis Diaz-Serrano & J. Hartog, 2004. "Is there a Risk-Return Trade-off across Occupations? Evidence from Spain," Economics Department Working Paper Series n1441004, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    5. Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Hartog, Joop, 2004. "Is There a Risk-Return Trade-Off across Occupations? Evidence from Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 1355, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Chung, Eui-Chul & Haurin, Donald R., 2002. "Housing choices and uncertainty: the impact of stochastic events," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 193-216, September.
    7. Fan, Gang-Zhi & Pu, Ming & Deng, Xiaoying & Ong, Seow Eng, 2018. "Optimal portfolio choices and the determination of housing rents under housing market uncertainty," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 200-217.
    8. Luis Díaz-Serrano & Joop Hartog, 2006. "Is there a risk-return trade-off in educational choices? Evidence from Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 30(2), pages 353-380, May.
    9. Gathergood, John, 2011. "Unemployment risk, house price risk and the transition into home ownership in the United Kingdom," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 200-209, September.
    10. Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2005. "Income volatility and residential mortgage delinquency across the EU," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 153-177, September.
    11. Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2004. "Income Volatility and Residential Mortgage Delinquency: Evidence from 12 EU Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1396, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Hirota, Shinichi & Suzuki-Löffelholz, Kumi & Udagawa, Daisuke, 2020. "Does owners’ purchase price affect rent offered? Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    13. Ortalo-Magne, Francois & Rady, Sven, 2002. "Tenure choice and the riskiness of non-housing consumption," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 266-279, September.
    14. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    15. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    16. Christian Grund & Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Preferences and the Impact of Wage Increases on Job Satisfaction: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(2), pages 313-335, June.
    17. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    18. Marianne Bertrand & Dean S. Karlan & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2005. "What's Psychology Worth? A Field Experiment in the Consumer Credit Market," Working Papers 918, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    19. Grund, Christian & Sliwka, Dirk, 2001. "The Impact of Wage Increases on Job Satisfaction - Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Duncan Luce, R., 1997. "Associative joint receipts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 51-74, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk aversion; skewness affection; homeownership; earnings uncertainty; transitory shocks in income; credit constraints.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • R0 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - 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:may:mayecw:n135020.pdf. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demayie.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.