EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Asset Bubbles: an Application to Residential Real Estate

Anna Scherbina and Bernd Schlusche

European Financial Management, 2012, vol. 18, issue 3, 464-491

Abstract: Behavioural models offer new insights into why bubbles are ubiquitous in residential real estate markets. These markets are dominated by unsophisticated households who often develop optimistic views by extrapolating from past returns. Rational investors cannot easily trade against an overvaluation of housing assets because of high transaction costs and a binding short sale constraint. Circumventing the effect of the latter, the supply of housing frequently increases in response to rising prices. This helps to mitigate bubbles but often leads to overbuilding, which slows down the recovery after a bubble bursts. Models that incorporate the effects of perverse incentives and limits to arbitrage are especially helpful in explaining the bubble that developed in mortgage†backed securities and helped fuel the recent real estate bubble by relaxing home buyers’ borrowing constraints. The literature is ambiguous about whether governments should intervene to burst bubbles, as a better response may lie in improving incentives of key market players.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-036X.2012.00647.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:eufman:v:18:y:2012:i:3:p:464-491

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1354-7798

Access Statistics for this article

European Financial Management is currently edited by John Doukas

More articles in European Financial Management from European Financial Management Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:eufman:v:18:y:2012:i:3:p:464-491