The Unassuming Economist

From a paper by Junyi Xiang, Dongmin Kong, and Fan Zhang:

“Labor cost has rapidly increased in the past decades. However, little is known about its effect on the firm-level robot adoption, and evidence about the consequences of robot adoption on firm production is limited. Based on a novel dataset of robot adoption at the firm-level, we use geographic discontinuity design to identify that labor costs significantly increase robot adoption and further improve product quality. Our findings are robust to alternative specifications and particularly pronounced for foreign firms, and firms with low financial constraints, and general trade, and firms more dependence on unskilled labor, and firms in higher position in the value chain. When adopting robots to substitute labor, firms tend to employ (layoff) skilled (unskilled) labors, which increases expenses on employee training.”

From a paper by Jinfang Pu, and Fangzhou Xia:

“As global climate change intensifies and urbanization accelerates, research on urban climate change has become a global concern. Urban decision-makers must determine optimal city sizes to achieve net-zero emissions. However, previous studies have mainly focused on average relationships between city size and carbon emissions, overlooking non-linear dynamics. This study used urban scaling laws to investigate relationships between city size and carbon emissions from population and land perspective across 294 Chinese cities. Results showed a sub-linear relationship between urban population size (UPS) and carbon emissions and a super-linear relationship between urban land size (ULS) and carbon emissions. Regionally, cities in central regions demonstrated higher carbon emission performance than those in western and eastern regions. The land perspective indicated lower carbon emission performance compared to the population perspective. Both perspectives revealed non-linear relationships between city size and urban scaling exponent for carbon emissions, characterized by multiple minima. Multiple city sizes can achieve optimal carbon emissions; however, only one ULS is ideal for a specific city size to ensure environmental sustainability. This study provides valuable policy insights for decision-makers in formulating reasonable low-carbon strategies.”

From a paper by Dario Guarascio, Jelena Reljic, and Francesco Zezza:

“This paper analyses energy vulnerability and resilience in the EU. First, a comprehensive review of the relevant literature is carried out, discussing key concepts and indicators used to assess countries’ relative positioning vis-à-vis energy shocks. Second, we rely on a large set of indicators (i.e., share of energy intensive industries, import dependency and market concentration, productive and technological capabilities in the renewables domain, policy efforts to increase energy resilience) to provide a thorough mapping of EU Member States’ positioning in terms of energy vulnerability and resilience. Third, we assess industrial and energy policy actions put in place at both the EU and the national level, highlighting relevant heterogeneities and discussing whether policy efforts are consistent with the degree of vulnerability of Member States.”

On cross-country:

• A new measure of quality of life explains why people like living in bigger cities – LSE
• Housing policy action – OECD
• Housing the Economy – National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Working papers and conferences:

• 5th Workshop on Rent Control on June 19-20, 2025 – German Institute for Economic Research
• Housing Prices Propagation: A Theory of Spatial Interactions – CEPR
• Dynamic Urban Economics – NBER
• The scarring of the Great Recession on construction labor and housing supply – Real Estate Economics
• The Impact of Prudential Regulations on the UK Housing Market and Economy: Insights from an Agent-Based Model – SSRN
• The Determinants of Local Housing Supply in England – SSRN

On the US—developments on house prices, rent, permits and mortgage:    

• Evidence suggests U.S. house price/rent ratio, real home prices to decline – Dallas Fed
• Housing market map: Zillow just revised its 2025 home price forecast. Zillow projects that U.S. home prices will rise 1.1% between January 2025 and January 2026. – Fast Company
• Some Good News For Homebuyers: Slower Price Growth, More Supply and More Bargaining Power – Redfin
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 3.9% year-over-year in December – Calculated Risk
• New and Existing Home Price Gap Shrinking – NAHB
• US house prices increase strongly in December – Reuters
• Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey – Mortgage Bankers Association
• Mortgage Rates Tick Down to 6.85% as Spring Selling Season Approaches – Realtor.com
• Mortgage Rates Drop to Their Lowest Level in 2 Months, Upping Purchasing Power and Giving Homebuyers Window of Opportunity – Realtor.com
• Biden’s Mortgage ‘Relief’ Fuels Higher Housing Prices. It has created another subprime housing bubble and put taxpayers at risk. Trump should end it. – Wall Street Journal
• Housing market outlook: What forecasters see mortgage rates doing through 2026. A roundup of quarterly mortgage rate forecasts shows that most forecasters still expect mortgage rates to gradually decrease over the next 18 months. – Fast Company
• Refinance Activity Up Again During Fourth Quarter Despite Broader U.S. Downturn in Home Mortgages – ATTOM  
• Housing market outlook: What forecasters see mortgage rates doing through 2026. A roundup of quarterly mortgage rate forecasts shows that most forecasters still expect mortgage rates to gradually decrease over the next 18 months. – Fast Company
• California Home Sales Down 1.9% YoY in January; 4th Look at Local Housing Markets – Calculated Risk
• Existing Home Sales Slow in January – NAHB
• US existing home sales fall more than expected in January – Reuters
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.08 million SAAR in January. Median House Prices Increased 4.8% Year-over-Year – Calculated Risk
• U.S. New-Home Sales Slump at Start of 2025. Sales of new single-family homes fell 10.5% in January from the month before – Wall Street Journal
• New-Home Sales Slip in January – Realtor.com
• Why is America still building houses in climate danger zones? Developers are constructing more in high-risk areas — illustrating the twin challenges of adapting to severe weather while addressing a housing shortage – FT
• Housing market inventory offers a hint of what’s to come. New data indicates that national active housing inventory for sale is likely to increase this year. That will give buyers more power. – Fast Company
• Townhouse Construction Expanded in 2024 – NAHB
• Gains for Custom Home Building – NAHB
• Single-Family Home Size Increases – NAHB
• Multifamily Unit Size Increases – NAHB
• Fact Check: Do red states build more housing per capita than blue states? – Econofact
• Homebuilder Earnings – Erdmann Housing Tracker
• Year-over-Year Gain for Multifamily Missing Middle – NAHB
• Home Depot Says More Homeowners Will Start Renovating as Mortgage Rates ‘Freeze’ Housing Market – Realtor.com    
• Built-for-Rent Housing Remains Elevated – National Association of Realtors

On the US—other developments:    

• A Rollercoaster Housing Market – Morgan Stanley
• February 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report – Realtor.com
• Housing Market Gets Worrying Sign – Newsweek
• Demand v supply outlook. The Housing Crisis: Build Smarter, Not Just Taller – Matusik Missive
• Black first-time home buyers see strongest rebound as national rates decline – Zillow
• Trump administration looks to slash HUD workers tackling the housing crisis – AP
• Will Young People Ever Be Able to Own a Home and Will the Media Ask Under Trump? – CEPR 
• Since February is Black History Month here are 12 “Secrets” of U.S. Black Home Ownership – Real Estate Decoded
• The Rising Costs of Homeownership Are Increasing Burdens – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Are First‑Time Home Buyers Facing Desperate Times? – New York Fed
• What Real Estate Giants Are Saying About Technology | Q4 2024 Edition. We listened to their quarterly earnings calls so you don’t have to – Thesis Driven
• Elon Musk’s DOGE Reforms Aren’t Sending DC’s Housing Market Into a Death Spiral Yet, Despite Panicked Claims – Realtor.com
• Government Workers Who Have Lost Their Jobs Worry About Their Housing. The abrupt firings have left federal workers and contractors throughout the country in flux, with many distressed over how they will pay the mortgage or rent. – New York Times
• Fact Check: No evidence of Trump limiting public housing benefit to 2 years – Reuters
• Trump scraps Biden-era fair housing rule. Trump had weaponized an earlier version of the rule during the 2020 campaign, declaring that Democrats wanted to “abolish the suburbs.” – Politico

On China:

• China Home Prices Show Slight Improvement But Remain in Decline. Average home prices in the 70 cities surveyed dropped 0.07% from the prior month – Wall Street Journal
• China’s leaders look to have blinked in their property face-off. They did not want to bail out indebted firms. Now they are on the verge of doing so – The Economist
• How the state is propping up China’s housing market. As the government struggles to ease a real estate crisis, state-owned developers have been buying up land – FT

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Auction Market Preview – CoreLogic
• [Australia] The housing crisis is turning into an inequality crisis – The Australia Institute
• [Australia] Australia January consumer prices dip in the month as housing inflation slows – Reuters
• [Australia] Aussie home prices to rise only modestly this year as affordability bites – Reuters poll – Yahoo Finance
• [New Zealand] Signs aligning for house prices to rise in 2025 – economist – RNZ
• [New Zealand] New Zealand home prices forecast to rise 5.0% in 2025 as interest rates fall: Reuters poll – Reuters

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Canada’s housing plan needs a remodel: Senator Varone – Senate of Canada
• [Hong Kong] New World Development warns of US$871 million first half loss amid weak property market. The developer is suffering from valuation losses on its investment properties and high interest rate payments, analysts say – South China Morning Post
• [Hungary] Hungary’s Orban launches tax exemption for mothers, cap on housing loan rates – Reuters
• [Ireland] Planning rules for cabins and modular homes in back gardens set to be relaxed. Proposals being considered to allow modular or cabin-style homes be exempt from planning permission – The Irish Times
• [Italy] Move over Milan: property investors set their sights on spruced-up Rome – Reuters
• [Spain] La construcción se estanca en las zonas con mayor déficit de Vivienda. La obra nueva crece un 9% en el conjunto de España según los últimos datos disponibles, pero en Madrid cayó un 1,47%, mientras la de Barcelona apenas creció un 1,95% – El Pais
• [United Kingdom] How to solve the house price conundrum? Look no further than Gwynedd in Wales – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] English councils’ spending on emergency housing surges. Near-80% jump in expenditure to £732mn reflects increasingly acute homelessness crisis, says charity – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK Homebuyers Who Miss Tax Deadline to Pay Up to £11,250 Extra. Rightmove says 74,000 unlikely to complete before April 1. First-time buyers of £500,000 homes set to be hit hardest – Bloomberg 
• [United Kingdom] Gap between prices of UK flats and houses ‘widest in 30 years’. Cladding concerns and rising service charges hit demand for apartments – FT

From a paper by Joshua Aizenman:

“A growing share of emerging markets (EMs) uses hybrid versions of inflation targeting that differ from the IT regimes of the OECD countries. Real exchange rate and international reserve changes affect the policy interest rates in commodity countries, aiming to stabilize their real exchange rate in the presence of volatile terms of trade and heightened exposure to capital inflow/outflow shocks. Inflation targeting works well with independent central banks, yet fiscal dominance concerns may hinder the efficacy and independency of central banks. This suggests experimenting with the integration of monetary rules and fiscal rules, possibly linking these rules with the operations of buffers like international reserves and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). The global financial crisis validated the benefits of countercyclical management of international reserves and SWFs in reducing the volatility of real exchange rates. Macroprudential policies may complement or even substitute buffer policies by reducing a country’s balance sheet exposure to foreign currency debt, mitigating the risk of costly sudden stops and capital flight. A growing share of EMs is experiencing exposure to new financial technologies (fintech), providing cheaper and faster financial services and extending financial coverage to previously under-served populations. Deeper fintech diffusion may redirect financial intermediation from regulated banks to emerging fintech shadow banks, some of which may have a global reach. These developments, and the diffusion of cryptocurrencies promising anonymized payment systems, may hinder the effectiveness of monetary policy and eventually induce greater financial instability. States may encourage the diffusion of efficient financial intermediation in ways that benefit users while restricting the use of anonymized exchange and global monies to reduce the threat of a shrinking tax base and to maintain financial stability.”