- Date
- Wednesday 23 Oct 2019, 12:00 - 13:00
- Type
- Seminar
- Room
- Polak 2-04
- Building
- Polak Building
Despite a major upscaling of single-family houses since 1980, house satisfaction has remained steady in American suburbs. This Easterlin paradox in the realm of housing can be explained by upward-looking comparisons in the size of neighboring houses.
Combining data from the American Housing Surveys with a geolocalised dataset of three million suburban houses, I find that new constructions at the top of the house size distribution lower the satisfaction that neighbors derive from their own house size. Upward-looking comparisons are stronger among people living in larger houses and decrease with the distance from McMansions.
I provide further evidence that homeowners exposed to the construction of big houses in their neighborhood put lower prices on their home, are more likely to upscale to a bigger house and take up more debt.
- Related links
- Department of Economics