Negative Equity Does Not Reduce Homeowners' Mobility

Sam Schulhofer-Wohl

No 16701, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Some commentators have argued that the housing crisis may harm labor markets because homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth are less likely to move to places that have productive job opportunities. I show that, in the available data, negative equity does not make homeowners less mobile. In fact, homeowners who have negative equity are slightly more likely to move than homeowners who have positive equity. Ferreira, Gyourko and Tracy's (2010) contrasting result that negative equity reduces mobility arises because they systematically drop some negative-equity homeowners' moves from the data.

JEL-codes: R21 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig and nep-ure
Note: EFG PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

Published as Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2012. "Negative equity does not reduce homeownersâ mobility," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Negative equity does not reduce homeowners’ mobility (2012)
Working Paper: Negative equity does not reduce homeowners' mobility (2010)
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