We develop two search-theoretic models emphasizing firm entry to examine the Oswald hypothesis, the idea that homeownership is linked to inferior labor market outcomes, and compare their predictions to three extant theories. The five models have surprisingly different predictions about the labor market at both the aggregate and micro levels. Using a suitable instrumental variable strategy, we estimate both micro and aggregate level regression models of wages and unemployment and compare the estimates to those predictions. We find that while homeowners are less likely to be unemployed, they also have lower wages, all else equal, compared to renters. In addition, higher regional homeownership rates are associated with a greater probability of individual worker unemployment and higher wages. The outcome of a horserace between our new search-theoretic models is mixed-the wage-posting model predicts observed unemployment impacts while a bargaining variant does a better job explaining observed wages and aggregate labor market outcomes. Overall, we conclude that firm behavior is important for understanding the labor market impacts of homeownership. Because this is the case, regional homeownership rates are not good instruments for individual tenure choice in empirical work. And while individual homeowners may have inferior labor market outcomes as compared to renters, from the viewpoint of society, higher homeownership rates may result in greater job creation and overall production, among other benefits.

The recent slump notwithstanding, substantial increases in house prices in many parts of the United States have served to highlight housing affordability for moderate-income households, especially in high-cost, supply-constrained coastal cities such as Boston. In this article, we develop a new measure of area affordability that characterizes the supply of housing that is affordable to different households in different locations of a metropolitan region. Key to our approach is the explicit recognition that the price/rent of a dwelling is affected by its location. Hence, we develop an affordability methodology that accounts for job accessibility, school quality and safety. This allows us to produce a menu of town-level indexes of adjusted housing affordability. The adjustments are based on obtaining implicit prices of these amenities from a hedonic price equation. We thus use data from a wide variety of sources to rank 141 towns in the greater Boston metropolitan area based on their adjusted affordability. Taking households earning 80% of area median income as an example, we find that consideration of town-level amenities leads to major changes relative to a typical assessment of affordability. Copyright (c) 2009 American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

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This paper investigates the phenomenon of sale and leasebacks as one way in which firms may use financial contracts to rearrange their organizational architecture. A theoretic model links the length of initial leaseback period to incentives to make noncontractible future investments in the lease relationship and predicts that firms choose shorter leases when landlords make relatively important investments. Using a sample of 71 sale and leaseback events from the 1990s, we document a significant mean abnormal return of 1.3% for shareholders of seller/lessee firms announcing relatively short leasebacks. The evidence suggests that firms may use sale and leasebacks to optimize their claims to real estate. Copyright 2004 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association

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Brokerage, Percentage commission contracts,

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