Homeownership, Mobility, and Unemployment. Evidence from Housing Privatisation

Hana M. Broulíková, Peter Huber, Josef Montag and Petr Sunega

No 548, WIFO Working Papers from WIFO

Abstract: Homeownership is believed to cause higher unemployment. This is because homeowners face higher mobility costs that limit their job search to local labour markets. Empirical tests of this prediction have yielded mixed results so far, possibly due to the endogeneity of homeownership. This paper documents that the privatisation of public housing in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain resulted in a quasi-experimental assignment of homeownership to individual households. This facilitates a new test of the effects of homeownership on mobility and unemployment. We find only weak evidence that homeowners are less willing to move and no evidence of higher unemployment risks relative to renters.

Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tra and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Journal Article: Homeownership, mobility, and unemployment: Evidence from housing privatization (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2018:i:548

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