Working from home and long-term housing wealth inequality in large cities of advanced economies

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explain the potential long-term impacts of working from home on housing wealth inequality in large cities of advanced economies. Design/methodology/approach This study is descriptive research and It supports the arguments by providing some emerging evidence from property markets in developed countries. Findings The authors argue that due to the unique nature of the COVID-19 crisis, it will have a different and long-term impact on housing wealth inequality. Changes in the working arrangements of many professionals will change the housing demand dynamic across different suburbs and may lead to a reduction of the housing wealth gap in the long term. In this paper, the authors propose five mechanisms that may impact housing wealth inequality. Research limitations/implications Long-term data is required to test the proposed conceptual model in this study and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing wealth across and within suburbs of large cities. Practical implications Policymakers and regulators may benefit from the discussions and suggestions provided in this study and consider the proposed avenues on how new changes in the working environment (remote working) may result in a reduction of housing wealth inequality. Originality/value This study presents a new perspective about the potential long-term impacts of working from home that is posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on housing wealth inequality in large cities of developed economies.

Locked-out: generational inequalities of housing tenure and housing type

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to first explore whether Australia and the main metropolitan areas demonstrate significant differences in tenure and property type between generational groups. Second, whether the millennial generation is more likely to rent rather than own. Third, if such variation in tenure and property type by millennials is one of individual choice and lifestyle or the impact of housing market inefficiencies.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs a comparative research approach using secondary data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to consider housing tenure and type distributions across generations as well as through cross-city analysis.FindingsThe results show that home ownership is still the dominant tenure in Australia, but private rental is of increasing significance, becoming the tenure of choice for Millennials. Owner occupation is shown to remain and high and stable levels for older generations and while lower in percentage terms for Generation X; this generation exhibits the highest growth rate for ownership. Significant differences are shown in tenure patterns across Australia.Originality/valueThe significance of this paper is the focus on the analysis of generational differences in housing tenure and type, initially for Australia and subsequently by major metropolitan areas over three inter-census periods (2006, 2011 and 2016). It enhances the understanding of how policies favouring ageing in place can contradict other policies on housing affordability with specific impact on Millennials as different generations are respectively unequally locked-out and locked-in to housing wealth.

Difference in Housing Finance Usage and Its Impact on Housing Wealth Inequality in Urban China

With the increasing importance of financial loans in home purchases in urban China, the role of housing loans in the accumulation of housing wealth needs to be unraveled. Using the data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), this study investigates the use of housing loans and their impact on housing wealth inequality. It has been found that people with higher socioeconomic status and institutional advantages benefit more from housing provident fund loans and are more likely to fully invoke different financing channels to accumulate housing wealth. On the contrary, disadvantaged groups have to resort to costly market-based mortgages to finance their home purchases. This leads them to fall further behind in housing wealth accumulation. The spatial stratification of housing wealth accompanying the urban hierarchy was also observed and found to be closely linked to the type of housing loans. In this increasingly financialized era, relying on financial instruments in the process of household asset accumulation may further amplify the existing wealth inequality among social groups.

Essays on modern economic issues in international trade, exchange rates and housing

<p>The common theme of the three papers in this thesis is the focus on the impact of data choices on empirical research in Economics. Such choices can be about the source of data; should we source the data from country A or country B in a bilateral trade relation? Is there a way to reconcile the discrepancies in international trade data? In investigating the impact of exchange rate on trade, should we choose high-frequency or low-frequency data? What does the choice of a certain frequency imply for the econometric analysis? In assessing the impact of housing wealth on household consumption, what are the benefits of choosing household-level data? How can we take advantage of aggregate data on house prices to circumvent the endogeneity arising from household-specific confounding factors? This thesis shows that data choices can strongly affect our conclusions regarding several modern economic issues. The first paper is titled ‘Reconciling International Trade Data.’ International trade data are filled with discrepancies–where two countries report different values of trade with each other. We develop an index for ranking countries’ data quality based on the following notion: the more a country’s reports on bilateral trade differ from the corresponding reports of its partners, the more likely it is a low-quality reporter. We calculate the comparative quality for each country’s imports and exports separately for every year from 1962 to 2016. We reconcile international trade data through picking the value reported by the country with higher quality in every bilateral flow. The findings include: (a) global trade was under-reported by roughly 5% over the past five years as countries with low data quality under-report both, their imports and exports; (b) erroneous reporting is prevalent among low-quality reporters; (c) importers’ data are less likely to be in error; (d) the level of development and corruption are possible determinants of trade data quality; (e) low-quality reporters are 14% more open to trade using reconciled data than using self-reported data (f) China tends to under-report its exports and over-report its imports, while there is only a small difference between US self-reported and reconciled data. The reconciled trade dataset is made freely available for future studies to use. The second paper is titled ‘Why You Should Use High Frequency Data to Test the Impact of Exchange Rate on Trade.’ The paper suggests that testing the impact of exchange rate on trade should be done using high frequency data. Using different data frequencies for identical periods and specifications between the US and Canada, the paper shows that low frequency data suppresses and distorts the evidence of the impact of exchange rate on trade in the short-run and the long-run. The third paper is titled: ‘Housing Leverage and Consumption Expenditure: Evidence from New Zealand Microdata.’ The paper investigates how household debt affects the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth. The paper uses New Zealand household-level data on spending, income, and debt over the period 2006–2016. The main empirical challenge is to identify exogenous variation in house prices to determine how consumption evolves with movements in household wealth. This identification problem is complicated by the presence of unobserved household characteristics that are correlated with housing wealth. The paper uses a detailed house sale dataset to derive local average house prices and use it as an instrument. The empirical results show that the estimated elasticity of consumption spending to housing wealth is about 0.22%. In dollar terms, the average marginal propensity to consume out of a one-dollar increase in housing wealth is around 2.2 cents. The empirical results confirm that household indebtedness, especially mortgage debt, acts as a drag on consumption spending, not only through the debt overhang channel, but also through influencing the collateral channel of the housing wealth effect.</p>

Essays on modern economic issues in international trade, exchange rates and housing

<p>The common theme of the three papers in this thesis is the focus on the impact of data choices on empirical research in Economics. Such choices can be about the source of data; should we source the data from country A or country B in a bilateral trade relation? Is there a way to reconcile the discrepancies in international trade data? In investigating the impact of exchange rate on trade, should we choose high-frequency or low-frequency data? What does the choice of a certain frequency imply for the econometric analysis? In assessing the impact of housing wealth on household consumption, what are the benefits of choosing household-level data? How can we take advantage of aggregate data on house prices to circumvent the endogeneity arising from household-specific confounding factors? This thesis shows that data choices can strongly affect our conclusions regarding several modern economic issues. The first paper is titled ‘Reconciling International Trade Data.’ International trade data are filled with discrepancies–where two countries report different values of trade with each other. We develop an index for ranking countries’ data quality based on the following notion: the more a country’s reports on bilateral trade differ from the corresponding reports of its partners, the more likely it is a low-quality reporter. We calculate the comparative quality for each country’s imports and exports separately for every year from 1962 to 2016. We reconcile international trade data through picking the value reported by the country with higher quality in every bilateral flow. The findings include: (a) global trade was under-reported by roughly 5% over the past five years as countries with low data quality under-report both, their imports and exports; (b) erroneous reporting is prevalent among low-quality reporters; (c) importers’ data are less likely to be in error; (d) the level of development and corruption are possible determinants of trade data quality; (e) low-quality reporters are 14% more open to trade using reconciled data than using self-reported data (f) China tends to under-report its exports and over-report its imports, while there is only a small difference between US self-reported and reconciled data. The reconciled trade dataset is made freely available for future studies to use. The second paper is titled ‘Why You Should Use High Frequency Data to Test the Impact of Exchange Rate on Trade.’ The paper suggests that testing the impact of exchange rate on trade should be done using high frequency data. Using different data frequencies for identical periods and specifications between the US and Canada, the paper shows that low frequency data suppresses and distorts the evidence of the impact of exchange rate on trade in the short-run and the long-run. The third paper is titled: ‘Housing Leverage and Consumption Expenditure: Evidence from New Zealand Microdata.’ The paper investigates how household debt affects the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth. The paper uses New Zealand household-level data on spending, income, and debt over the period 2006–2016. The main empirical challenge is to identify exogenous variation in house prices to determine how consumption evolves with movements in household wealth. This identification problem is complicated by the presence of unobserved household characteristics that are correlated with housing wealth. The paper uses a detailed house sale dataset to derive local average house prices and use it as an instrument. The empirical results show that the estimated elasticity of consumption spending to housing wealth is about 0.22%. In dollar terms, the average marginal propensity to consume out of a one-dollar increase in housing wealth is around 2.2 cents. The empirical results confirm that household indebtedness, especially mortgage debt, acts as a drag on consumption spending, not only through the debt overhang channel, but also through influencing the collateral channel of the housing wealth effect.</p>

Post-crisis developments in young adults’ housing wealth

How has housing wealth inequality changed for young-adult households in the post-financial crisis period, and what is driving such change? We chart a path for subsequent studies by analysing the previously unexamined post-crisis housing wealth profile of young adults via different angles and using multiple inequality measures. Using household micro-data for 11 European countries ( Household Finance and Consumption Survey, 2010–2017) and the United States ( Survey of Consumer Finances, 2010–2016), we find that the accumulation of housing assets for 22–44 year olds is unevenly concentrated among high-income homeowners, over and above what would be expected given the well-known decline in homeownership. We describe and assess several potential drivers for these wealth profile changes, finding that the current explanations offered in the literature do not adequately account for the unequal wealth profile of young people. We conclude that a mix of dynamics, including housing market volatility, housing market configurations leading to uneven capital gains and losses, and the increased social selectivity of homeownership intersect to shape the ways that young adults navigate the housing market in post-crisis times.

Does Bridge Employment Mitigate or Exacerbate Inequalities Later in Life?

This paper explores how gradual retirement impacts inequality later in life, with a focus on transitions from career to bridge employment. We use 26 years of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to document the various pathways that older Americans take when exiting the labor force, and examine how bridge employment impacts non-housing wealth and total wealth, including the present discounted value of Social Security benefits. We find that gradual retirement in the form of bridge employment neither exacerbates nor mitigates wealth inequalities among Americans who held career jobs later in life. We do find evidence that wealth inequalities grow among the subset of older career workers who transition from career employment to bridge employer at older ages. These findings provide quantitative evidence that bridge employment at older ages is taken by those who need to continue working financially and those who continue working for nonpecuniary reasons.