Homeownership, Polarization, and Inequality
研究发现，美国大城市房价上涨导致中等收入家庭迁往小城市，造成大城市收入分布空心化，加剧了极化与不平等；模型表明房价相对收入与租金的超额增长几乎解释了大小城市间极化差距的全部和近一半的不平等差距。
Abstract Why are job polarization and income inequality higher in large U.S. cities? I offer a new explanation: when house prices grow faster in large cities, middle-income households increasingly cannot afford to own a house there. They move to smaller cities and the middle of the income distribution in large cities hollows out, making them more polarized and unequal. I document that (1) cities with higher price growth experienced larger polarization and increase in inequality since 1980 and (2) middle-income households migrate more often to cheaper locations for housing-related reasons than low- or high-income households. Using a spatial equilibrium model with tenure choice and skill heterogeneity, I find that excess growth of prices relative to incomes and rents in large cities accounts for nearly all of the gap in polarization and almost one-half of the gap in inequality growth between large and small cities from 1980 to 2019.