Why Do the Swiss Rent?

At less than 34%, Switzerland has the lowest home ownership rate in Western Europe. This may seem odd given the economic strength of the country. We use household survey data for five Swiss cantons to explore some possible reasons for this. We estimate a tenure choice equation that allows us to analyze the impacts of a number of key variables on the ownership rate. We pay particular attention to the relative cost of owning and renting, which is a function of house prices, rents, and the user cost of owning. The latter is a function of income tax policy and expected house price inflation, among other things. We also measure mortgage underwriting criteria and consider rent control and other policies affecting rental housing. By simulating a number of hypothetical changes to taxation and other policies, underwriting criteria, and price levels, we assess the importance of these variables in explaining the ownership rate. We conclude that high house prices—relative to household incomes and wealth—and the tax on imputed rent are the most important causes of Switzerland’s low ownership rate.     

Asymmetric Properties of Office Rent Adjustment

In this paper we use an error correction model for understanding the changes in real office rents for a panel of 15 U.S. MSA’s over the period 1990-2007. We find that office rents in all cities react positively to a rise in office employment and lagged rent changes, while lagged deviations from equilibrium rent levels exhibit a slow and partial adjustment over time. Given the non-negativity constraint of vacancy rates we extend the basic model by examining whether rents react to positive changes in employment conditional on the vacancy rate level. Our results show that office rents react significantly stronger to increases in employment when vacancy rates are below the long-term average. We also repeat the analysis for clusters of cities based on similarities in rent and employment dynamics using multi dimensional scaling. The cluster results confirm the overall conclusions and show that our results are not solely valid for the full panel of cities.     

House prices,bank instability,and economic growth: Evidence from the threshold model

This paper examines the effects of house prices on bank instability when gauged at various levels of income growth. Bank stability may respond differently to house price changes or deviations from fundamental values in an economic boom environment than in a bust circumstance. A threshold estimation technique developed by Hansen (1999) is applied to a panel of 286 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) over the period 1990Q1–2010Q4. We consider two house price indicators: the house price changes and the house price deviations from long-run equilibrium. The results suggest the existence of income growth threshold effects in the relationship between house prices and bank instability. Specifically, there are two income growth thresholds when using the house price changes and one income growth threshold when the house price deviations are applied. Robustness results using the non-MSAs sample from 1995Q1 to 2010Q4 provide further evidence of income growth threshold effects.     

Trends,Cycles and Convergence in U.S. Regional House Prices

In this study we present a statistical analysis of the time series properties of the geographic regions in the OFHEO U.S. house price database. The time period for our study is first quarter 1975 through second quarter 2005. We perform an unobserved components, structural time series analysis of nine regional indexes and two super-regional factors and fit a classic “smooth trend plus cycle” model. We then apply bivariate unit root tests for absolute and relative convergence of the regions and factors, allowing for the possibility of a structural break. We find the two super-regions have slightly different patterns of trends and cycles until the early to mid-1990s, when a common pattern of strong and sustained price appreciation is seen. The evidence for regional convergence is mixed, with little for the first super-regional factor and some examples of relative convergence within the second factor. Thus support for a simple error correction model for regional house prices in our study is mixed.     

再售期权、货币幻觉与商品住宅价格泡沫

再售期权和货币幻觉两个因素分别从投资者对未来现金流分布的信念差异和对贴现率估计偏差的角度解释房地产价格泡沫的形成和膨胀。本文以上海商品住宅市场为例,运用动态剩余价值模型从租金房价比角度测度上海房价泡沫水平,并检验再售期权和货币幻觉对上海房价泡沫的解释作用。经验分析发现,上海商品住宅市场存在再售期权和货币幻觉效应,其中货币幻觉效应对房价泡沫影响具有不对称性但解释作用更强,建议应重点关注高通胀和实际负利率对房价泡沫的影响。     

Fundamentals,Misvaluation, and Business Investment

Does stock market misvaluation affect business fixed investment? To answer this question, we provide evidence based on U.S. firm‐level panel data. We examine the orthogonality conditions for the investment Q and Euler equations, and our qualitative tests reject the null hypothesis that investment is unaffected by misvaluation (this result is not driven exclusively by the late 1990s). To measure the quantitative effects on investment, we introduce a measure of misvaluation into standard investment equations. Our estimates imply that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in misvaluation increases investment between 20% and 60% relative to the mean level of investment in the sample.     

What Drives the Owner‐Occupied and Rental Housing Markets? Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model

Most dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with a housing market do not explicitly include a rental market and assume a tight mapping between house prices and rents over the business cycle. However, rents are much smoother than house prices in the data. We match this feature of the data by adding both an owner‐occupied housing market and a rental market in a standard DSGE model. The intertemporal preference shock accounts for more than half of the variation in house prices and contributes to residential investment fluctuations through the liquidity constraint, and nominal rigidity in rental contracts captures the variation in the price‐rent ratio.     

House Prices and Bubbles in New Zealand

This paper studies actual (real) house prices relative to fundamental (real) house values in New Zealand for the period 1970–2005. Utilizing a dynamic present value model, we find disparities between actual and fundamental house prices in the early 1970s and 1980s and from 2000 to date. We model the bubble component that is related to fundamentals (the intrinsic component), making it possible to highlight whether a bubble still exists after that component is accounted for. We then analyze any remaining bubble to detect any momentum behavior. Much of the overvaluation of the housing market is found to be due to price dynamics rather than an overreaction to fundamentals.

The Effect of House Prices on Household Consumption in Italy

This paper studies the effect of a change in real estate wealth on the consumption behaviour of Italian households, using the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth dataset. We relate annual household consumption to capital gains in housing, controlling for characteristics such as age. In line with the empirical predictions of our model, we find the oldest households—which are less affected by the higher costs of future rent—to be the most affected by increases in real net housing wealth. Younger households, on the other hand, are not significantly affected in their consumption decisions by house price increases. We also take into account the fact that benefiting from capital gains is conditional on owning housing wealth and estimate the different impacts of house price changes on the savings behaviours of both homeowners and renters. Our estimates suggest that house price increases raise consumption not only for homeowners but also for renters.     

收入差距与房地产价格泡沫：基于门槛效应研究

基于不同收入居民对住房消费品和投资品双重属性的偏好差异,结合居民的住房偏好特性,考量收入差距对房价收入比的影响。结果显示：收入差距对房价收入比的影响存在门槛效应：低于门槛值时,影响为抑制作用;高于门槛值时,影响转为促进作用,且随着收入差距进一步的扩大效应更为明显。鉴此,应聚焦缩小收入差距,合理引导居民住房消费与投资,以有效控制我国房地产价格泡沫趋势。