We investigate the effect of house price changes on MSA-level divorce rates using data for 1991-2010 from the Current Population Survey and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Our findings suggest that changing house prices significantly affect divorce rates, and that these effects are asymmetric with respect to housing gains versus losses. In addition, we find differential effects for groups that are more likely to be homeowners versus renters. Some of this evidence is consistent with homeowners being locked into their homes by increased transactions costs in down markets.3

No abstract

We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight to measure the effect of changes in housing wealth on retirement timing. Using cross-MSA variation in house-price movements to identify wealth effects on retirement timing, we find evidence that such wealth effects are present. According to some specifications the rate of transition into retirement increases in the presence of positive housing wealth shocks. In addition, we use data on expected age of retirement to measure the impact of housing wealth shocks on expectations about retirement timing. Using renters as a control for heterogeneity in local amenities and using individual fixed effects to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity, we find that a 10% increase in housing wealth is associated with a reduction in expected retirement age of between 3.5 and 5 months.

We study the effect of product market volatility on a firm's choice between multiskilling and specialization. We construct a theoretical model that captures the tradeoff between multiskilling (which gives greater flexibility to reassign workers in production) and specialization (which provides workers with the expertise to respond to product market signals in their area of specialty). Using data from the 2004 WERS, a nationally-representative cross section of British establishments, we find that greater volatility is associated with greater specialization. This result holds both inside and outside of manufacturing, but consistent with our model, it holds only in multi-product establishments and not in single-product ones.

We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight to measure the effect of changes in housing wealth on retirement timing. Using cross-MSA variation in house-price movements to identify wealth effects on retirement timing, we find evidence that such wealth effects are present. According to some specifications the rate of transition into retirement increases in the presence of positive housing wealth shocks. In addition, we use data on expected age of retirement to measure the impact of housing wealth shocks on expectations about retirement timing. Using renters as a control for heterogeneity in local amenities and using individual fixed effects to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity, we find that a 10% increase in housing wealth is associated with a reduction in expected retirement age of between 3.5 and 5 months.