The housing cost disease

Abstract

Using a simple two-sector life cycle economy with housing services and bequests, we show that a rising labor efficiency in the general economy relative to the construction sector can go a long way toward explaining a significant fraction of the rising trends in wealth-to-income ratios, housing wealth, and wealth inequality, that have been documented in most advanced countries at least since the ’70s. This mechanism (which we label housing cost disease) has adverse effects on social welfare when the Planner puts sufficient weight on the less wealthy households.