Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi / Thesis advisor: Matteo Iacoviello / This dissertation studies the implications of housing market heterogeneity for the trans- mission of shocks, welfare and the conduct of monetary policy. In the first chapter I focus on mortgage contract heterogeneity (fixed vs. variable-rate mortgages). I develop and solve a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features a housing market and a group of constrained individuals who need housing collateral to obtain loans. A given proportion of constrained households borrows at a variable rate, while the rest borrows at a fixed rate. The model predicts that in an economy with mostly variable-rate mortgages, an exogenous interest rate shock has larger effects on borrowers than in a fixed-rate economy. For plausible parametrizations, aggregate differences are muted by wealth effects on labor supply and by the presence of savers. More persistent shocks cause larger aggregate differences. From a normative perspective I find that, in the presence of collateral constraints, the optimal Taylor rule is less aggressive against inflation than in the standard sticky-price model. Furthermore, for given monetary policy, a high proportion of fixed-rate mortgages is welfare enhancing. Then, I develop a two-country version of the model to study the implications of housing market heterogeneity for a monetary union as well as costs and benefits of being in a monetary union when there are asymmetric shocks. Results show that consumption reacts more strongly to common shocks in countries with high loan-to-value ratios (LTVs), a high proportion of borrowers or variable-rate mortgages. I also find that country-specific housing price shocks increase consumption not only in the country where the shock takes place. Welfare analysis shows that housing-market homogeneization is not beneficial per se, only when it is towards low LTVs or predominantly fixed-rate mortgages. As for costs and benefits of monetary unions, when there is a technology shock in one of the countries and they are symmetric, the monetary union regime is welfare worsening. However, results are dependent on whether or not countries are symmetric and on the source of the asymmetry. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Real estate activity is notably influenced by local land use regulation. By acting as redtape costs or explicitly through compensatory payments, such rules typically increase construction costs by reducing supply and increasing demand in the housing market, which leads to higher prices. This is the first study to model the decision-making process of housing supply using a game theoretic approach. To shed light on the roleof regulation and competition in this industry, I employ a static-entry model that incorporates the demand, cost and strategic factors common to the activity. I built aunique data set forthe city of São Paulo, Brazil, with information on the universe ofnew residential buildings launched in the city, along with a history of all licenses requested by the developers tothe government for each project. My empirical results show that the regulation play akey role in developer activity. For the areas with the most intense activity of the city,the bureaucracy in the residential approval process cost annually R$ 47 millions (US$ 14millions) by entrant firm. / A atividade imobiliária é particularmente influenciada pela regulação do uso da terra. Ao agir como \"custos burocráticos\" ou explicitamente por meio de pagamentos compensatórios,essas regras normalmente aumentam os custos de construção ao reduzir a oferta e aumentara demanda de novas residências, o que leva a preços mais altos. Este é o primeiro estudo amodelar o processo de decisão de oferta de residências usando uma abordagem de teoria dos jogos. Para mostrar os efeitos da regulação e da competição nesse setor, eu emprego um modelo de entrada estático que incorpora os fatores de demanda, custo e estratégicos comuns a essa atividade. Eu construí uma base de dados única para a cidade de São Paulo, Brasil, com informações sobre o universo de novos empreendimentos residenciais na cidade, juntamente comum histórico de todas as licenças e alvarás requeridos pelas incorporadoras à Prefeitura para cada projeto. Meus resultados mostram que a regulação tem um papel chave na atividade imobiliária. Para as áreas com atividade mais intensa da cidade, a burocracia no processo de aprovação de novas residências tem um custo média anual de R$ 47 milhões por firma entrante no mercado.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’agency (capacité d’agir) telle qu’elle se manifeste dans la vie quotidienne des migrants chinois en situation défavorable en France. Les enquêtes ont été effectuées dans deux quartiers en banlieue parisienne qui accueillent de nombreux nouveaux arrivants « par le bas », et qui commencent leur vie migratoire par une période irrégulière. En dépit d’une double exclusion dans la société d’accueil à la fois de la part des politiques migratoires et du marché, les immigrés chinois réussissent généralement à sortir de l’ornière. Comment y parviennent-ils ?En s’appuyant sur l’accès au logement et au travail, deux domaines essentiels dans l’expérience migratoire, cette thèse tente de répondre à cette problématique en se focalisant sur les marchés ethniques. Non seulement les liens interpersonnels, mais aussi les liens communautaires basés principalement sur l’ethnicité, sont mobilisés comme ressources.Cette thèse entend d’abord mettre en lumière les marchés ethniques du logement et du travail, afin de mieux comprendre le mécanisme qui fait fonctionner cette économie ethnique. D’autre part, elle entend mettre en relief trois questions essentielles autant bien sur le plan académique que sur le plan politique : l’approche émique, en insistant sur les perspectives des migrants eux-mêmes, la tension entre l’importance des ressources communautaires dans la vie quotidienne des migrants chinois et ses contraintes éventuelles, et le faux dilemme entre communauté et intégration. / This thesis has as its main object of interest the forms of agency manifested in the everyday life of Chinese migrants in disadvantaged situations in France. This is studied through fieldwork conducted in two neighborhoods in Paris suburbs, which received a great number of arrivals “from the bottom”, who began their life as migrants through an undocumented period. Despite a double exclusion in the host society from migration policies and from the market, Chinese immigrants usually manage to pull themselves out. How did they achieve this?By investigating the access to housing and work, two essential domains in the migration experience, this thesis attempts to address this problem with a focus on ethnic markets. In those markets, both interpersonal relationships and community bonds based on ethnicity are mobilized as resources.This thesis aims first to bring to light ethnic markets in housing and work, in order to achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms that enable this ethnic economy to function. Both in scholarly and political perspectives, this thesis emphasizes three essential questions: the emic approach, in which the perspectives of migrants themselves are privileged, the tension between the importance of community resources in the everyday life of Chinese immigrants and their constraints, and finally the false dilemma between community and integration.

Real estate sales significantly declined during and after the 2008 mortgage crisis. In the United States, real estate sales dropped 35% after the mortgage crisis. Guided by the attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) model, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies successful residential real estate organization managers use to mitigate sales decline in a postrecession environment. Three residential real estate organization managers in Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia participated in semistructured interviews. These participants are currently selling homes, worked in the real estate market before the 2008 mortgage crisis, and developed successful strategies to mitigate declining sales in a postrecession environment. The data collection process for this study included the semistructured interviews, review of archival documents, and member checking to explore successful strategies for mitigating declining sales for residential real estate organization managers. The data analysis included data coding, organizing, and making conclusions with the use of Yin's 5 phase process. During analysis, the 4 themes to emerge were customer service, consistent work ethic, innovation, and market specialization. By implementing the identified successful sales strategies, these residential real estate organization managers were able to mitigate a decline in sales in a postrecession environment. Real estate professionals may use these findings to decrease the delays in the home buying process and increase employees' sales performance. More home sales can improve local economies and the welfare of communities.

This dissertation includes three essays on growth, the housing market, and inequality. In the first essay, I analyze the effects of government consumption and government debt on long-run economic growth by considering the economic characteristics of the countries investigated. Linear regressions reveal that government consumption has a much bigger negative impact on long-run growth compared with the negative (and sometimes insignificant) effects of government debt. Nonlinear analyses further show that such effects are highly impacted by the economic characteristics of the countries investigated. In the second essay, I study time-series fluctuations in the United States housing market from 2010 to 2016 using the Gordon growth model. Using variance decomposition analysis, I find that the housing premium is the main driver of housing market fluctuations. Motivated by previous studies and using impulse response functions, I show how different components of the housing market respond over time to a shock in the interest rate in regions with different levels of income or demographics. My findings suggest that the impact of monetary policy is smaller (and less persistent) in the U.S. housing market when households have more females, more African Americans, or fewer well-educated members; a combination of these demographics and a lower income in households results in a smaller impact of monetary policy in the housing market, due to the necessity of housing for these families. In the third essay, I use Internal Revenue Service (IRS) annual data and Zillow median housing price data, to analyze the impact of income inequality on housing price to rent ratio from 2005 to 2015 for more than 12,700 zip codes. Employing various specifications, I find a consistent positive and significant relationship between the Gini coefficient and housing affordability index. My results are robust to different methods of estimating the Gini index. Moreover, the empirical results of this study suggest a larger impact of inequality in zip codes with higher levels of income.

The Inland Empire -Riverside and San Bernardino Counties - was one of the hardest hit areas in all of the United States during the Great Recession. Home prices have declined over 50%, significantly more than the 25% decline in the surrounding Los Angeles County, and housing starts have declined to over 90% from 2005. The Inland Empire has one of the highest unemployment rates in the US at 14.8%. This paper attempts to forecast the recovery for the Inland Empire. Employing univariate forecasts along with VAR(12) forecasts, focusing on housing starts and unemployment rates as the underlying variables, we find that there is little hope for a recovery over the next 3 years. The model predicts unemployment to either rise even more or, at best, remain stagnant. Housing starts are predicted to remain constant over the next three years.

This study is focused on finding what impact the debt of co-op organizations has on cession prices. This is performed through a quantitative method, using multiple multi-linear regression analysis on a sample of 322 observations of co-op purchases in the inner areas of Stockholm in February 2010. The regressions are also applied to different sub-samples constructed within the observations. Previous theories and research on price fixing, capital structure and market efficiency are discussed in the context of the results. This study also presents a brief discussion on the structure of the Swedish housing market. The results show that the debt-ratios do not significantly affect the cession prices. However, the nominal amount of debt per co-op affects the cession price negatively. The results also show that co-op sizes, the monthly fee and the number of rooms do affect the price significantly. Also, common assumptions about co-ops, such as the idea that new co-op organizations would have more debt than old ones, are explored empirically. The market-to-book-ratio of the observations is also calculated in order to explain the results from the coefficient for booked debt and debt-ratios.

The extent of influence of monetary policies on housing prices in the Greater China region is examined in this study using data from 2005-2015. Using vector autoregression, the effects of housing indices, interest rates, money supply as well as stock market index are accessed. Results suggest that monetary policies do in fact influence housing market trends in Greater China. Furthermore, the extent of influence on Mainland China on the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets is also tested. Results imply a greater co-integration between the Mainland and Hong Kong market than that between Mainland and Taiwan. The effect of exchange rate is deemed as insignificant. Housing policies set by national and local governments show to be less influential than predicted. Lastly, granger causality is not present between the different markets within this study.

This dissertation focuses on mortgage defaults in Southern California during the housing bubble of the 2000s. The rapid decline in the housing market that precipitated the current recession has been accompanied by an unprecedented number of loan defaults and foreclosures. Recent studies have identified two major theories of default--the "double trigger" hypothesis, where negative equity and an income shock are necessary conditions for default--and "strategic default" where negative equity is a sufficient condition for default. This paper adds to the default literature by adding short sale as another possible outcome of mortgage default. The primary goal is to analyze the determinants of mortgage default to assist in understanding the conditions under which strategic behavior of home sales is most likely to occur. Data from Los Angeles County was analyzed from 2007 to 2010 for every closed sale, then coded into three possible sales outcomes: 1) Organic 2) Short Sale 3) Real Estate Owned (REO). A multinomial probit model was used to model homeowner decision-making based on the sale outcome. The model rejected the "double trigger" hypothesis, as it was found that income shocks do no have a significant effect on impacting the predicted probability for distressed sales. Education levels, the sales price of homes, credit card debt, and market price reductions were found to be significant variables in determining distressed sales outcomes, thereby confirming the strategic default hypothesis. The next section studied spatial association of short sales and REO to see if any contagion effects were present. It was found that both short sales and REO form into clusters of hot and cold spots. Social stigma is believed to impact consumer behavior, the theory was confirmed through the findings of contagion and spatial lag. The final section constructed a hedonic price model to capture the price effects that distressed sales have on neighborhood pricing. Foreclosures were found to have three times the negative impact on neighborhood pricing compared to short sales.

This paper uses data collected from the National Interbank Funding Center of China, the People’s Bank of China, the National Bureau of Statistics, and Bloomberg starting in October 2006 through 2013 to test the economic fundamental’s affecting the housing market in Shanghai, particularly interest rates. This study finds that the 6- month duration Shibor has a negative and significant correlation with house price growth in Shanghai when lagged 4 months. The analysis continues by examining other economic fundamentals affecting house price growth, finding growth in inflation, the money supply and Shanghai real estate investment to have significant, positive relationships with the housing market in China. GDP and the national state balance, on the other hand, have negative and significant relationships with house price growth. The Shanghai stock exchange was found to have no significant impact on the housing market over the time period. The sample period is limited to 87 observations due to the relatively recent development of Shibor for a benchmark interest rate.