Counterintuitive response to tax incentives? Mortgage interest deductions and the demand for debt

Abstract: A number of European countries changed their tax system in the early 1990s along the lines of the US tax reform act of 1986. After the reforms marginal tax rates were generally lower, and mortgage interest deductions less generous. At the same time a long period of house appreciation started in most countries. This paper considers this puzzle empirically using a rich data base of Norwegian tax records from 1986 to 2000. We use nonparametric, difference in difference and tobit approaches in attempt to control for a wide array of factors that may offset, or mask, response to changed incentives. Of special concern is possible credit constrains as implied by credit score models routinely applied by credit institutions. We find a surprisingly static relationship between the probability of debt across age groups, and a strikingly linear and unchanged relationship between debt and gross income for young households. After the reform house prices doubled and tripled. The wealth effect may spur consumption. We find no sign of consumption smoothing by using self-owned housing as debt collateral, not even for older households. On the contrary, older households did react to the reform by reducing real debt. Keywords: Tax incentives; credit rationing; mortgage market, household deb

Dominated choices in Risk and Time Elicitation

Many risk and time elicitation designs rely on choice lists that aim to capture a switch point. A choice list for a respondent typically contains two switch point defining choices; the other responses are dominated in the sense that the preferred option could be inferred from the switch point. While these dominant choices may be argued necessary in the data collection process, it is less evident that they should be included at an equal footing with switch point defining choices in the subsequent analysis. We illustrate this using the same data set and model framework as in the seminal paper Andersen et al. (2008). The inclusion of dominated choices has a significant effect on both discount rate and risk aversion estimates. In the case of discount rate estimation, including the near (far) future-dominated choices give higher (lower) discount rates. In the case of risk aversion estimates, including more dominated save option choices tend to give more risk aversion, but the picture is more mixed than in the discount rate case

The Effect of the Countercyclical Capital Buffer on the Stability of the Housing Market

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Intertemporal Choice Lists and Maximal Likelihood Estimation of Discount Rates

The experiments designed to estimate real-life discount rates in intertemporal choice often rely on ordered choice lists, where the list by design aims to capture a switch point between near- and far-future alternatives. Structural models like a Samuelson discounted utility model are often fitted to the model using maximal likelihood estimation. We show that dominated tasks, that is, choices that do not define the switch point, may bias ML estimates profoundly and predictably. More (less) dominated near future tasks give higher (lower) discount rates. Simulation analysis indicates estimates may remain largely unbiased using switch point-defining tasks only

Is diminishing impatience in time-dated risky prospects explained by probability weighting?

We use a field experiment and a within-subject design based on multiple Choice Lists (CLs) that integrate time and risk. Diminishing impatience with extended time horizons is studied by varying time horizons from one week to two years. Time-dated risky prospects are constant within CLs and are always compared with time-dated certain amounts to identify time-dated Certainty Equivalents. Non-linear probability weighting is modeled with a 2-parameter Prelec function. First, we identify a strong diminishing impatience associated with longer time delay between prospects. Second, we test whether non-linear probability weighting can explain and reduce the observed diminishing impatience by replacing linear probability weighting with an estimated inverted S-shaped Prelec function. We find that this does not reduce the observed degree of diminishing impatience. We conclude that the observed diminishing impatience is neither explained by the combination of present bias and certainty bias nor by non-linear weighting of risk in future prospects

Housing careers, P/R-ratios and rental equivalence

This paper analyses price-rent ratios under different housing career structures. A housing market with three segments for owner-occupation and a segment with rental housing is applied while a housing career is characterised by how households move between rentals and owner-occupation. While rents are completely passed-through to aggregate house prices when rentals represent alternative housing to all forms of owner-occupation, more realistic housing career structures induce strict conditions for complete pass-through. In a heterogeneous housing market with equity induced up-trading complete pass-through is conditional on the ratio between market segments only indirectly affected by rent. This ratio is determined by the distribution of equity effects between market segments and the price elasticity of the different segments, and is therefore context specific. Stated differently, in most housing markets rents will not be completely passed through to house prices in the short-run

Mental Zooming as Variable Asset Integration in Inter-Temporal Choice

Our time preferences deviate systematically from that of Homo economicus. They seem to be driven by a form of mental zooming, where higher and more distant amounts induce a more holistic perspective in contrast to smaller and near future amounts. We model zooming as variable asset integration and ask whether this can explain the observed variation in discount rates in experiments. It can. Equally important, the zooming for both time and magnitude is similar across two countries (Ethiopia and Malawi) and within a country (Ethiopia).publishedVersio

Rising inequality of housing? : evidence from segmented housing price indices

Abstract: This article uses the Case-Shiller technique for constructing housing price indices on a Norwegian data set of transactions for the period 1991-2002 consisting of 10 376 pairs of repeated sales. Using a weighted least squares scheme in order to control for heteroskedasticity, we construct a general housing price index by regressing differences in log prices for the subset of repeated sales of same, and thus identical, homes onto a set of binary time variables, one for each quarter in the period. The constructed index shows that nominal prices for identical homes in general have increased by a factor of 3.58 over the 11-year period, while the CPI increased by 1.28, creating substantial capital returns for early purchasers. We then segment the data set into five different housing types in order to control for finite mixtures of hedonic features, and find that price indices for the smallest and largest type show nominal increases by factors 4.40 and 2.77, respectively. Keywords: distribution, hedonic model, housing price bubble, housing price index, inequality, repeated sales model, segmented housing type