When Walmart Comes to Town: Always Low Housing Prices? Always?
Walmart often faces strong local opposition when trying to build a new store. Opponents often claim that Walmart lowers nearby housing prices. In this study we use over one million [...]
The Boom, the Bust and the Future of Homeownership
This article investigates the boom and bust in U.S. homeownership rates over the 2000–2010 period. Using individual-level census data, we first estimate 204 homeownership regressions stratified by household age (21, [...]
Regulating Consumer Financial Products: Evidence from Credit Cards
We analyze the effectiveness of consumer financial regulation by considering the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act in the United States. Using a difference-in- differences research design [...]
Varying the Variance: How New York City Can Solve Its Housing Crisis and Optimize Land Use to Serve the Public Interest
Urban America requires a solution to its affordable housing crisis, and combined with the above data, Census Bureau reports demonstrate that New York City needs a solution more than most [...]
Failure to Refinance
Households that fail to refinance their mortgage when interest rates decline can lose out on substantial savings. Based on a large random sample of outstanding U.S. mortgages in December of [...]
This Isn’t Working: How Michigan’s Licensing Laws Hurt Workers and Consumers
Unfortunately, there has not been a lot of public debate about the impact that these licenses have on workers. Far more attention has been paid to labor issues such as [...]
The State of Occupational Licensing: Research, State Policies and Trends
State policymakers play an important role in setting licensure policy and are at the heart of many efforts to strike the right balance needed to protect consumers and promote economic [...]
Policy Intervention in Debt Renegotiation: Evidence from the Home Affordable Modification Program
We evaluate the effects of the 2009 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) that provided intermediaries with sizeable financial incentives to renegotiate mortgages. HAMP increased intensity of renegotiations and prevented substantial [...]
2017 Special 301 Report
One of the top trade priorities for the Trump Administration is to use all possible sources of leverage to encourage other countries to open their markets to U.S. exports of [...]
Are Inventions Inevitable? A Note on Social Evolution
In conclusion, it is thought that the evidence presented of independent duplicate origins of inventions brings out forcibly the importance of the cultural factor in the production of inventions. Such [...]