Grace Wong Bucchianeri

"Banking for the Poor: Evidence from India" (with Robin Burgess and Rohini Pande)

Grace W. Bucchianeri et al. — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:31:28 PDT

State led credit and savings programs have been implemented in numerous low income countries, but their success in reaching the poor remains widely debated. We report on research which exploits the policy features of the Indian social banking program to provide evidence on this issue.

"Is Sars a Poor Man’s Disease? Socioeconomic Status and Risk Factors for Sars Transmission"

Grace W. Bucchianeri — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:43:58 PDT

This paper investigates the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong. A negative and significant correlation is identified between income and SARS incidence rates, while no similar relationship is found using education level.

"What Is a Tree Worth? Green-city Strategies and Housing Prices." (with Susan Wachter)

Grace W. Bucchianeri et al. — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:40:08 PDT

We investigate the correlation between curb-side tree plantings and housing price movements in Philadelphia from 1998 to 2003, comparing two programs, one by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society that requires block-group effort that focuses on low-income neighbourhoods and the other by the Fairmount Park Commission that is individual-based without specific target areas. A 7 to 11 percent price differential is identified within 4000ft of the Fairmount tree plantings. We argue that this is largely driven by either social capital creation or a signaling mechanism, on the top of an intrinsic tree value (around 2 percent). Findings using the PHS tree program suggest that development of social capital or environmentally-conscious behavior might be a less important channel. Any positive changes brought by the PHS tree plantings were not detected with sufficient statistical power.

"A Comparison of International Residential Housing Risk Premia" (with Chris Julliard)

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:09:03 PDT

This paper contributes to this debate on the substantial risk-adjusted returns to real estate by first constructing a panel of housing risk premia for 13 OECD countries over a long sample period (1966:Q3 to 2004:Q4), and then exploring the relationship of these risk premia to changes in the financial market depth, equity market activities, property tax system, urbanization, zoning regulations and political orientation of the government. By comparing the experiences of housing markets in various developed countries, this paper adds to our understanding of what constitutes the real estate risk premium.

"The Anatomy of a Housing Bubble"

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:07:32 PDT

This paper investigates the existence of housing bubbles through a within-city, panel analysis. The Hong Kong housing market experienced a real increase of over fifty percent between 1995 and 1997. Two phenomena during the price upswing stand out: a substantial cross-sectional variation in the price increase and strong co-movements of return and turnover rates. I posit and present evidence for two causes of the bubble: newspaper coverage and political uncertainties.

"Has Sars Infected the Housing Market? Evidence from Hong Kong."

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:05:12 PDT

This paper uses the 2003 Hong Kong Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic as a natural experiment to investigate how housing markets react to extreme events. An analysis of transaction volume suggests that the absence of price overreaction is likely to be related to housing market characteristics, including transaction costs, credit constraints and loss aversion.

"Do We Know How Much Our Homes Are Worth? (with Talya Miron-Shatz)"

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 07:01:13 PDT

This paper investigates the self-reported home value, an indicator of housing wealth used in the economic and other literature extensively. Given no observable “true” value of a given home at any given time, we come up with two benchmarks, both based on a market transaction of a specific home. First, we study the gap between a reported home value and the subsequent sales price for around 2,000 retirement-age households across in the US, all of whom have sold a house within one year of self-reporting a home vlaue. We find systematic and significant differences in reported home values from the sales prices by income, housing finance status and health. This analysis focuses exclusively on households who have sold a home. We also document the evolution of reported home values on the same home by the same households across time, whether the home is subsequently sold or not. Second, we perform similar analysis on about 600 women in Franklin County, OH, by tracing back the historical sales price of their residence in the tax records. We use a hedonic-adjusted historical sales price as a benchmark, after adjusting for housing characteristics, geographical location and time trends. This enables an analysis on those who have not sold a home. The main findings remain robust. Additionally, we use a hypothetical experimental setting to demonstrate that even given identical information about a house, there exists initial variations in self-reported price evaluations , and those variation further influence home sale outcomes, including asking prices, probability of a sale and sales price. This suggests that variations in price evaluations affect economic actual behavior. We conclude that researchers need to be mindful of systematic variations in the reported home value indicator, especially when income, health or financial correlates cannot be sufficiently controlled for or accurately measured. We discuss how the interpretation of relevant literature can be affected by a potential bias in the reported home value indicator.

"Be it Ever So Humble: Understanding Housing Using Subjective Well-being Data"

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:55:54 PDT

This paper presents new evidence on the utility – or well-being – derived from housing. There are three areas of focus: 1) how people feel at home versus outside home and if there is a positive athome differential, especially with respect to housing as a complementary good to family life; 2) whether well-being related to housing consumption varies by home values and homeownership status; and 3) if and how neighborhood home prices relate to home related well-being measures.

"The American Dream? The Private and External Benefits of Homeownership"

Grace Wong Bucchianeri — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:50:25 PDT

Using a unique data set that links up well-being and housing consumption, I measure systematic differences between homeowners and renters in a wide array of time use and well-being measures. While homeowners report to be happier on an unadjusted basis, they do not report higher levels of well-being by any measure in this data set when demographics and income are controlled for. Their time use patterns reveal little evidence of them being "better citizens". Homeowners who live in ZIP code areas with higher rates of homeownership report more positive attitudes only if other owners are similar to them in socio-economic terms, lending some support to the idea of beneficial social interaction among owners.