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Heterogeneity, Frictional Assignment and Home-Ownership

Author

Listed:
  • Allen Head

    (Department of Economics, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada)

  • Huw Lloyd-Ellis

    (Department of Economics, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada)

  • Derek Stacey

    (Department of Economics, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada)

Abstract

A model of the distribution of home-ownership in a city is developed. Heterogeneous houses are built by a competitive development industry and either rented competitively or sold through directed search to households which differ in wealth and sort over housing types. In the absence of both financial restrictions and constraints on house characteristics, higher income households are more likely to own and lower quality housing is more likely to be rented. Calibrated to match average features of housing markets within U.S. cities, the model is qualitatively consistent with U.S. data on the relationships between observed differences in median income, inequality, median household age, and construction/land costs across cities and both home-ownership and the average cost of owning vs. renting. Policies designed to improve housing affordability raise both housing quality and ownership for lower income households while lowering housing quality (but not ownership) for high income ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Allen Head & Huw Lloyd-Ellis & Derek Stacey, 2018. "Heterogeneity, Frictional Assignment and Home-Ownership," Working Papers 070, Toronto Metropolitan University, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:rye:wpaper:wp070
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Randall Wright & Philipp Kircher & Benoit Julîen & Veronica Guerrieri, 2017. "Directed Search: A Guided Tour," NBER Working Papers 23884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    House Prices; Liquidity; Search; Income Inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General

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