Housing Supply

Abstract

Research on housing supply has grown owing to improved data combined with heightened interest in policies such as local land use regulations. Heterogeneity in supply conditions across markets is shown to be essential to understanding the growing price dispersion across metropolitan areas, as well as to understanding whether positive growth shocks to a metropolitan area manifest themselves more in terms of expanding population and homebuilding or in terms of higher wages and house prices. The nature of supply obviously also influences local housing-market dynamics. Recent research has shown that differences in the elasticity of housing supply can account for the wide variation in new construction volatility (but not price volatility) across markets over time. The extraordinary nature of the recent boom only increases the need to understand how housing-market fundamentals and supply and demand affect the functioning of this huge asset market.