Financial frictions, the housing market, and unemployment

Unemployment, Financial Frictions, and the Housing Market

We develop and calibrate a two-sector, search-matching model of the labor market augmented to incorporate a housing market and a frictional goods market. The labor market is divided into a construction sector and a non-housing sector, and there is perfect mobility of unemployed workers across sectors. In the frictional goods market households, who lack commitment, …nance random consumption oppo...

Financial frictions, the housing market, and unemployment

We develop a two-sector search-matching model of the labor market with imperfect mobility of workers, augmented to incorporate a housing market and a frictional goods market. Homeowners use home equity as collateral to …nance idiosyncratic consumption opportunities. A …nancial innovation that raises the acceptability of homes as collateral raises house prices and reduces unemployment. It also t...

The effect of the housing market on mobility and unemployment

Unemployment and the US Housing Market during the Great Recession∗

This paper evaluates the role of unemployment scarring and fear thereof for the recent U.S. housing bust. I study a quantitative lifecycle model of the housing market, which features an income process that is consistent with the large and long-lasting impact of unemployment on future earnings documented in recent empirical work. The model features exogenous moving shocks consistent with survey ...

News shocks, expectation driven business cycles and financial market frictions

This paper explores the booms and busts induced by news shocks in a model economy with financial market frictions. Firms can accumulate capital through either purchase of the existing capital or producing new capital by themselves. Firms need to borrow from financial intermediaries to finance their purchases of capital. With the presence of financial market frictions, firms have to pay an exter...