Residential Construction and Credit Market Imperfection

Using the asset market equilibrium approach, the effects of Financial Regulations, Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (1989), of the new housing selling time, and of the commercial paper–Treasury Bill spread, through the credit markets, on total and speculative single-family housing construction are investigated. A new speculative single-family housing starts series is developed for this analysis. The credit-market factors appear to affect both the cost of construction loans and the price elasticity of single-family housing construction. These effects are especially strong on speculative housing construction.     

经济集聚、人口流动与住宅价格空间溢出效应研究

基于省级面板数据,利用空间计量模型考量经济集聚、人口流动和住宅价格间的空间溢出效应关系.结果发现:中国省际住宅价格间存在着显著的正向空间相关性,即某一地区住宅价格的波动会受到周边地区或经济特征类似地区住宅价格波动的影响;人口流动在经济集聚和房价的关系中发挥着中介作用;经济集聚与住宅价格在空间上存在着显著的相关关系,经济集聚不仅会推高集聚中心住宅价格,还会通过"虹吸效应"和"涓滴效应"对周边住宅价格产生影响,而经济集聚对周边住宅价格的影响取决于人口净流入率的大小.     

中国城镇居民住房的需求与供给

本文研究了自1980年代后期中国城镇住房商品化以来城镇居民住房的需求与供给。我们从耐用消费品需求与供给的标准理论出发,在联立方程框架下估计城镇住房的需求与供给方程,得到了需求的收入与价格弹性及供给的价格弹性的估计值。通过对1987～2006年全国城镇总体水平年度数据的分析,我们发现城镇住房价格的快速上涨主要可由需求与供给的作用解释,即人均收入和建筑成本的变化决定了房价的整体趋势。城镇住房需求的(长期)收入弹性约为1,需求的价格弹性在0.5到0.6之间。住房存量总供给的价格弹性约为0.83。     

Mortgage Design in an Equilibrium Model of the Housing Market

How can mortgages be redesigned to reduce macrovolatility and default? We address this question using a quantitative equilibrium life‐cycle model. Designs with countercyclical payments outperform fixed payments. Among those, designs that front‐load payment reductions in recessions outperform those that spread relief over the full term. Front‐loading alleviates liquidity constraints when they bind most, reducing default and stimulating housing demand. To illustrate, a fixed‐rate mortgage (FRM) with an option to convert to adjustable‐rate mortgage, which front‐loads payment reductions relative to an FRM with an option to refinance underwater, reduces price and consumption declines six times as much and default three times as much.     

Social Capital and Housing Affordability: Evidence from China

This article attempts to examine the problem of housing affordability in China based on a set of household-level survey data. In contrast to the previous studies, our study focuses on the important implication of social capital for households’ house-purchasing decisions in this country. Our results show that household expenditures on the relations with parents and other relatives are important determinants for homeownership in China. We also find evidence that house-purchasing decisions are significantly affected by relatives-related variables such as number of immediate relatives in the same city, distance from parents, educational years of family head’s father, and whether parents are alive. Our research helps shed new light on the high homeownership rates in urban China.     

公积金约束、家庭类型与住宅特征需求——来自中国的经验分析

公积金约束正成为分化不同类型家庭住房支付能力和消费偏好的重要因素。本文利用1995年和2002年城市住户调查数据,检验公积金约束对不同类型家庭住宅特征需求的影响。实证结果表明,在住宅特征需求方面,公积金约束的影响效应存在显著的收入差异、单位类型差异、职业类型差异、职称差异和行业收入差异。其中,社会地位较高的家庭在提高住宅结构特征需求方面获得了更多的公积金支持;而在住宅邻里特征需求方面,公积金制度对社会地位较低家庭的贡献度较高。在引入工具变量、检验公积金变量的内生性偏误时发现,城镇家庭在改善型住房需求方面对社会保障体系的完善有较强的依赖性。本文的政策含义是,住房公积金制度定位应向低收入群体倾斜,并根据家庭类型实行有差别的政策。     

对当前我国住房市场结构性问题的思考——基于北京市住房市场的实证分析

研究住宅市场供求关系的失衡以及特征、成因和根源,是解决住宅市场结构性问题的关键。解决住房市场绐构性问题,要调整好三个比例关系:保障类住房建设和商品房建设之间的比例关系;经济适用房建设与廉租房建设之间的比例关系;经济适用房建设和消费中"租"与"借"的比例关系。     

试论我国的房地产泡沫的判定及其预控机制

2004年10月底人民银行加息,国家新一轮宏观调控政策出台,关于房地产市场究竟存不存在泡沫的讨论也越来越激烈。本文从影响房地产泡沫产生的几个因素着手,对房地产泡沫进行判定并分析其控制机制。     

住房投资与家庭创业:促进还是挤出?--基于CFPS面板数据的实证分析

本文基于房价持续增长的现实背景,利用中国家庭追踪调查数据,以家庭住房数量为核心检验住房投资对城镇家庭创业选择的影响及作用机制。研究发现,相比无房家庭,自有住房家庭的创业概率并未显著提高;当家庭有多套住房时,才能显著提高创业概率。同时,对仅有一套住房的家庭,住房价值对家庭创业没有显著影响。但对有多套住房家庭而言,住房价值能显著提高创业概率。本文发现住房投资尽管能够通过缓解信贷约束、增加风险偏好等机制促进创业,但也会对创业产生显著的挤出效应。只有在政府坚持住房去金融化和"房住不炒"的调控政策下,住房投资对家庭创业的促进作用才能逐步占据主导。     

Duration of Residence in the Rental Housing Market

This paper estimates a proportional hazard model of duration of residence in rental housing over 1987–1998 based on a unique dataset from the BLS-CPI housing sample together with American Housing Survey and other metropolitan economic data. The paper employs an innovative semi-parametric estimation approach for group duration analysis of the proportional hazard model. Results of the analysis indicate that the duration of residence in rental housing varies significantly across individual units and market segments, and is effected by tenant, dwelling, and market characteristics. An improved understanding of duration of residence offers new insights as regards fluctuations in tenant turnover, building occupancy, and rent flows, as well as new confidence in pro forma assumptions critical to rental housing development.     

老龄化背景下住房负担能力对家庭创业行为的影响——来自CHFS数据的证据

基于2013—2017年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)三期面板数据,利用房价收入比作为住房负担能力的衡量指标,实证分析老龄化背景下房价收入比对家庭创业行为的影响。结果表明：房价收入比越高,家庭参与创业活动的积极性越低;老龄化进程的加快会进一步加剧高房价收入比对家庭创业活动的抑制作用。进一步分析发现,在老龄化加剧背景下,高房价收入比的创业抑制效应主要集中在仅有一套房的家庭中。基于此,提出在促进房地产市场平稳健康发展的同时,需积极加快完善养老服务体系并引导家庭理性配置资产。     

International Housing Markets and the U.S. Subprime Crisis

We propose a novel decomposition approach to study the degree of co-movement of international housing markets while distinguishing among different economic drivers. We find that the housing market variability for an average country was mainly driven by the common housing risk premium components during the years leading up to the 2007–08 subprime financial crisis. A decrease in the common housing risk premium was followed by a housing boom and economic expansion in the United States prior to the crisis. Our findings add to the understanding of the role of common risk factors across international housing markets before the crisis.     

A Study of the Brokerage Cost Allocation in a Rental Housing Market with Asymmetric Information

We analyze the brokerage service cost allocation in the rental housing market. We explain the alleged inconsistent phenomenon of landlords only occasionally requiring tenants to incur mediation cost. We show that when asymmetric information is introduced, under which tenants tenure horizon is unobservable to landlords, a separating equilibrium may be attained, in which the length of the tenant's tenure horizon is directly related to his share in the brokerage commission. Finally, we empirically examine and confirm a set of the model's assumptions and derivations within the rental housing-market framework.     

Signaling-Screening Equilibrium in the Mortgage Market

The signaling model of Spence (1973a) and the screening model of Rothchild and Stiglitz (1976) have been separately used to explain economic phenomena when there is asymmetric information. In the real world, however, situations of asymmetric information often simultaneously involve signaling and screening. In this paper, we combine signaling and screening mechanisms and demonstrate a signaling-screening separating equilibrium. We present the analysis within the framework of mortgage markets. Borrowers signal their default risk types to lenders by acquiring different credit records. This partially separates borrowers into subsets. Lenders screen each subset by offering menus of mortgage loan contracts. Borrowers, then, self-select by choosing particular contracts from the menu. We show the conditions under which the signaling-screening equilibrium is Pareto superior to a screening-only equilibrium.     

Local Experiences,Search, and Spillovers in the Housing Market

Recent local price growth explains differences in search behavior across prospective homebuyers. Those experiencing higher growth in their postcode of residence search more broadly across locations and house characteristics, without changing attention devoted to individual sales listings, and have shorter search duration. Effects are stronger for homeowners, in particular those living in less wealthy areas and looking for a new primary residence. We use reduced-form analysis and a quantitative equilibrium model to show that the expansion of search breadth translates into widespread spillovers onto house sales prices and inventories of listings across postcodes within a metropolitan area.     

Residential Construction Costs and the Supply of New Housing: Endogeneity and Bias in Construction Cost Indexes

Change in the level of residential construction affects macroeconomic conditions and is an important determinant of movements in house prices. Theory teaches us that increases in the cost of construction should reduce the supply of new housing. Yet empirical research has failed to find a consistent relationship between these costs and housing starts. This article introduces an entirely new set of micro-data on housing construction costs to study this issue. We develop quality-controlled, hedonic construction cost series from these data. Using this series, we estimate housing supply and construction cost functions for new single-family residences. This research demonstrates that bias in the commercial cost indexes used in existing housing supply studies is a likely cause of their poor performance in existing estimates of the supply of new single-family housing. The bias appears to be caused by an incorrect measure of labor costs and a failure to address the endogeneity of construction costs and construction activity. In contrast, starts regressions using the hedonic cost series generate much more sensible results. We find that housing starts are quite cost elastic; construction costs are endogenous in the new housing supply function, and the cost shares of material and labor in the structure of new residences are approximately 65 and 35%, respectively.     

The Long-Run Elasticity of New Housing Supply in the United States: Empirical Evidence for 1950 to 1994

The long-run price elasticity for alternative specifications of new housing supply is estimated using U.S. annual data for 1950 through 1994. The basic model expresses residential construction as a linear function of new housing price and the prices of construction inputs. Long-run elasticities range from 1.6 to 3.7, suggesting that new housing supply is price elastic. Residential construction responds to both the real interest and expected inflation rates, but other construction cost variables perform poorly. However, the results are sensitive to the time-series processes underlying the variables. A modified model that expresses residential construction as a function of changes in input prices, rather than their levels, produces a long-run elasticity of about 0.8 and a significant inverse relationship between new housing supply and the construction wage rate.     

A Spatial Model of Housing Returns and Neighborhood Substitutability

This article provides a method for estimating housing indices at the local level. It develops a distance-weighted repeat-sales procedure to exploit the factor structure of the error-covariance matrix in the repeat-sales model. A distance function defined in characteristic and geographical space provides weights for the generalized least-squares model, and allows the use of all of the repeated sales in a metropolitan area to measure returns for the specific neighborhood of interest. We use distance-weighted repeat sales to estimate return indices for all zip codes in the San Francisco Bay area over the period 1980--1994.When distance is defined in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, we find that median household income is the salient variable explaining covariance of neighborhood housing returns. Racial composition and educational attainment, while significant, are much less influential. Zip-code level indices often deviate dramatically from the citywide index, depending upon income levels. This has implications for investors and lenders. Our results indicate that rates of return may vary considerably within a metropolitan area. Thus, simply using broad metropolitan area indices as a proxy for capital appreciation within a specific neighborhood may not be justified.     

Search Frictions,Financial Frictions,and Labor Market Fluctuations in Emerging Markets

This article examines the role of the extensive and intensive margins of labor input in the context of a business cycle model with a financial friction. We document significant variation in the hours worked per worker for many emerging-market economies using manufacturing data. Both employment and hours worked per worker are positively correlated with each other and with output. We show that a search-theoretic context in a small open-economy model requires a small wealth effect to explain these regularities at the expense of a smaller wage response. On the other hand, introducing a financial friction in the form of a working capital requirement can explain the observed movements of labor market variables such as employment and hours worked per worker, as well as other distinguishable business cycle characteristics of emerging economies. These include highly volatile and cyclical real wages, labor share, and consumption.     

Unemployment Risk, the Housing Market and the Effects of Decentralised Redistribution

The paper examines the general equilibrium effects of benefits to the unemployed and the taxes to pay for them in a two country model in which people move to maximise expected utility. Wages are set by unions, and unemployment emerges as an equilibrium phenomenon. Wage setting institutions are found to be important for assessing the welfare effects of redistribution from the employed to the unemployed. The analysis finds that, with monopoly unions, more redistribution tends to repel population from the country increasing redistribution and to reduce welfare in both countries, but the opposite is the case in a model in which wage setting does not depend on unemployment benefits and taxes. These effects are dampened by the combination of risk averse consumers and inelastic housing supply.