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Report
Housing busts and household mobility: an update
This paper provides updated estimates of the impact of three financial frictions?negative equity, mortgage lock-in, and property tax lock-in?on household mobility. We add the 2009 wave of the American Housing Survey (AHS) to our sample and also create an improved measure of permanent moves in response to Schulhofer-Wohl?s (2011) critique of our earlier work (2010). Our updated estimates corroborate our previous results: Negative equity reduces household mobility by 30 percent, and $1,000 of additional mortgage or property tax costs reduces household mobility by 10 to 16 percent. ...
Working Paper
Liquidity problems and early payment default among subprime mortgages
The lack of property tax escrow accounts among subprime mortgages causes borrowers to make large lump-sum tax payments that reduce liquidity. Different property tax collection dates across states and counties create exogenous variation in the time between loan origination and the first property tax due date, affording the opportunity to estimate the causal effect of loan-level exposure to liquidity reductions on mortgage default. We find that a nine-month delay in owing property taxes reduces the probability of first-year default by about 4 percent, or about one-third of the effect of a ...
Journal Article
Spirit of 13
Journal Article
Does business development raise taxes?
Speech
Impact of the Great Recession on public schools in the region
Remarks at the Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York City.
Working Paper
Property taxes and elderly labor supply
The recent housing market boom in the U.S. has caused sharp increases in residential property taxes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that rising property taxes have induced elderly homeowners to increase their labor supply. This paper uses 1992-2004 panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) as well as a newly collected dataset on state-provided property tax relief programs to investigate the effect of property taxes on the labor supply of elderly homeowners. It is the first rigorous study on the link between property taxes and elderly labor supply. I examine both the extensive margin ...
Report
Reading the fine print: how details matter in tax and expenditure limitations
At least 30 states, including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, operate under ?tax and expenditure limitations? (TELs): formula-based budgeting requirements that apply specific limits to expenditures, appropriations, or revenue collections by state or local government. More than a dozen states considered TELs in 2006. Legislation proposing a new TEL to further limit General Fund appropriations in Rhode Island was introduced; Maine citizens will vote on a more restrictive TEL this November. ; Several factors, including a desire for lower taxes and a belief that additional ...
Working Paper
Restraining the Leviathan: property tax limitations in Massachusetts
We examine the effects of Proposition 2-1/2--a property tax limitation law approved by Massachusetts voters in 1980--and assess voter satisfaction with these effects. We find that the proposition had a smaller effect on local revenues and spending than expected, as a result of both amendments to the law and a strong economy. Voters in 1980 believed there was significant waste in local government, partly because of an inability to monitor local officials. Proposition 2-1/2 curbed these agency losses, but direct local override votes and municipal expenditure patterns imply that the proposition ...
Journal Article
Prop. 13 nine years later