Beyond Unemployment and Inflation: Housing Unaffordability as a Macroeconomic Misery Component

Haifang Huang and John Helliwell

No 2026-10, Working Papers from University of Alberta, Department of Economics

Abstract: We ask whether housing unaffordability belongs in the misery index, pairing national house prices with the Gallup World Poll for up to 57 economies. Worsening affordability is robustly associated with lower average Cantril life evaluation: a ten percent rise in house prices, holding per-capita income fixed, weighs as heavily as a one-to-two percentage-point rise in unemployment. Housing belongs in the index. Equity prices, in contrast, carry little weight. The burden appears independently in the Integrated Values Surveys, which measure life satisfaction instead. In Gallup, the young and the middle-aged carry similar penalties, and even seniors are not completely spared.

Keywords: subjective well-being; house price; misery index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 I31 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 93
Date: 2026-09
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:albaec:023641

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