"Impact of Institutional Owners on Housing Markets" Under Review
with Caitlin Gorback and Zipei Zhu
Since the Great Recession, single-family rental and private-equity investors have transformed U.S. housing markets. Using housing deeds from 2010–2022, we show that these investors grew rapidly and clustered geographically. Exploiting variation from the pre-existing built environment and falling management costs, we instrument for their market share. A one-standard-deviation (average) increase in local shares raises prices by 1.05 (0.21) p.p. and rents by 1.68 (0.43) p.p. These averages conceal temporal heterogeneity: prices and rents fell pre-pandemic but rose amid the scramble for space. As investor expansion displaced owners, rents and prices declined, suggesting lower homeowner amenities.
Presented at: University of Toronto (Rotman), USC (Marshall), Baruch College (Zicklin), University of Colorado Boulder (Leeds), The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, SFS Cavalcade 2025, AREUEA-ASSA 2025, Stanford SITE for Housing and Urban Economics 2024, Cornell Real Estate Symposium 2024, SF Fed-UCLA conference on housing, financial markets, and monetary policy 2024, UEA North American Meeting 2024, Pre-WFA Summer Real Estate Research Symposium 2024, 2nd Annual Conference on Market-Based Solutions for Reducing Wealth Inequality, CICF 2024, ITAM Finance Conference 2024, RERI Annual Conference 2024, UT Austin Finance Brownbag
Funding: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) funding, McCombs Research Excellence Grants
Media: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) Webinar McCombs News and Magazine
"Asymmetric Underreactions and House Price Revisions" Under Review
with Ding Jing, Rongbing Huang, Lei Jiang
Larger reductions in house list prices from initial to final listings are followed by greater final-list-to-sales-price declines, whereas list-price increases show no momentum when instrumenting list-price revisions with exogenous monetary policy shocks. The proportion of listing-period visits by buyers with below-list-price budgets and an adverse down-payment policy change before the final listing predict final-list-to-sales-price declines, whereas above-list-price budgets and a favorable policy change do not predict increases. At the neighborhood level, larger initial-to-final-list-price cuts are associated with lower subsequent housing returns. These patterns support a search-and-bargaining model in which sellers underreact more than buyers to negative information shocks.
Presented at: AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2026 (scheduled), FMA 2025, International Review of Finance 2025 Conference on "Real Estate, Household, and ESG Finance"
"The Numbers Game: Effects of Listing Pricing Formats in Housing Bargaining" New draft!
with Haaris Mateen, Ye Zhang, and Tianxiang Zheng
Subsumes our original paper The Microstructure of the U.S. Housing Market: Evidence from Millions of Bargaining Interactions
This paper provides large-scale evidence on the signaling effects of listing pricing formats during housing negotiations. Using nationwide transaction-level and offer-level data, and guided by a model combining costly and cheap-talk signaling, we assess the effects of three pricing formats: precise ($351,000), charm ($349,900), and round ($350,000). Precise prices, signaling seller expertise, yield higher sale prices; charm prices serve as cheap-talk signals that speed up sales with modest price concessions; and round prices, used by uninformed sellers, trigger aggressive counteroffers and underperform charm prices, creating sizable efficiency losses. Overall, we highlight how signaling strategies can shape bargaining in high-stakes markets.
Presented at: Duke (Fuqua), University of Colorado Boulder (Leeds), Atlanta Fed, AFA PhD Student Poster Session 2025, India Management Research Conference 2024, 17th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics, Yale Junior Finance Conference 2023, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2024, Stockholm School of Economics Finance Brownbag, University of Houston Finance Brownbag, Columbia Experimental Design Workshop 2023.
"The Long-Run Effects of Remote Work on U.S. Office Markets" New draft!
with Xinle Pang and Max Yang
We study how remote work and tighter financial conditions reshape the long-run value of U.S. office assets using micro-geographic data. We estimate tract-level office supply elasticities and build a spatial equilibrium model that links firms’ input choices, workers’ location choices, and office developers’ financing constraints. The model explains the observed flight to quality: as remote work raises productivity, office demand shifts toward high-productivity locations, while financial frictions amplify price gaps and limit new construction. Using the model’s rent predictions, we estimate long-run reversion values. In Manhattan, model-implied prices are 30–50\% below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that office valuations have not yet fully adjusted to the new spatial and financial equilibrium.
"How Housing Supply Expansions Reshape Cities" New draft!
with Marco Giacoletti and Matthijs Korevaar
Best Paper Award, Housing Lab / Finance Ideas “Developments in the Dutch Housing Market” seminar, November 2025.
We study a large-scale policy relaxing residential land supply constraints near major Dutch cities in the mid-1990s. Land allocation was determined centrally and was unrelated to pre-policy local market dynamics. Using administrative data, we explore effects on housing, mobility, and labor markets. New supply attracted high-income individuals, primarily from nearby high-income neighborhoods, where house prices decreased. New supply also increased local employment in surrounding areas, especially in high-earning occupations. We develop a rich quantitative spatial equilibrium model and show that the impact of relaxing supply constraints on housing markets and welfare crucially depends on job reallocation and on in-migration flows.
"Entrepreneur Experience and Success: Causal Evidence from Immigration Wait Lines"
with Abhinav Gupta and Yifan Sun
Best Paper Award, Summer Research Conference in Finance at ISB 2024
This study examines the causal effect of entrepreneurs’ prior experience on the success of startups. Using variations in Green Card waiting periods within a country as an instrument for the experience of immigrant first-time entrepreneurs, we find that startups with more experienced founders achieve greater success in securing funding, generating patents, and expanding their workforce. The key driver of this success is the larger initial team size, made possible by the founders’ enhanced ability to recruit former colleagues. Our results suggest that each additional year of experience translates into an estimated value of $200,000, highlighting an important factor for policymakers and venture capitalists to consider.
Presented at: University of Cincinnati (Lindner), NC State, AFA Junior Faculty Mentoring Program workshop 2026 (scheduled), NBER Economics of Talent 2025, NBER Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship 2025, AFA 2025, SEA 2025, NFA 2024, Labor and Finance Conference at the Kelley School of Business 2024, 20th Annual Finance Conference at WashU in St. Louis, 17th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics, Summer Research Conference in Finance at Indian School of Business 2024
"Remote Work and Consumer Cities"
with Yichen Su
The rapid adoption of remote work reduced the physical presence of workers in urban centers, weakening cities’ traditional role as centers of production. We highlight that cities’ role as centers of consumption remained robust and, with greater time flexibility from workers, may have grown in importance. We present a stylized model showing that the amenity value premium of dense urban areas can serve as an anchoring force for urban foot traffic despite residential suburbanization. Using detailed mobile-device foot traffic data, we find that while remote work reduced visits to former commuting destinations, it simultaneously increased visits to amenity-rich urban hot spots. Our findings suggest that remote work accelerated the transition of urban centers from commuting destinations to leisure destinations.
Presented at: UIUC, University of Iowa (Tippie), University of Houston Brownbag, ASSA-Econometric Society 2026 (scheduled), the Bloomberg Center for Cities Research Conference at Harvard University 2025, The Implications of Remote Work Conference at Stanford University 2025, AREUEA National 2025, UEA European 2025, MEA 2025, WEAI’s 100th Annual Conference
"Mortgage Lock-in, Lifecycle Migration, and the Welfare Effects of Housing Market Liquidity"
with Kristopher Gerardi and David Zhang
We use a search and matching model to study the heterogeneous welfare effects of housing market illiquidity due to mortgage lock-in over the lifecycle. We find that younger home buyers are disproportionately affected by mortgage lock-in, which disrupts their typical pattern of moving to higher-quality neighborhoods. We estimate a model with heterogeneous seller-buyers bargaining within markets defined by CBSA-income terciles and with endogenous migration across markets. We find that the effects of mortgage lock-in on volume are significantly more muted than its partial equilibrium estimates, with interest rates driving most of the aggregate decline in volume, and with the level and sign of effect varying greatly across geographies. Without mortgage lock-in, time on the market increases by 80–109%, house prices decline by 2%–4%, and match surplus increases by 0%–5%. The pricing and match surplus effects are 2–3 times larger for households in lower-income areas, due to a higher idiosyncratic dispersion in buyer valuation leading to larger match surplus variation in those areas. Our study highlights the welfare benefits of market thickness in real estate markets.
Presented at: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, WFA 2025, Pre-WFA Summer Real Estate Research Symposium 2025, NFA 2025, MFA 2025, AEA 2025, Colorado Finance Summit 2024, University of Toronto Financial Economics Conference 2024
Media: Brookings
"The Effects of High-skilled Firm Entry on Incumbent Residents" Rej & Resubmit at American Economic Review, Under revision using LEHD data
with Rose Tan
Claire and Ralph Landau Prize for the Best Student SIEPR Discussion Paper 2021
Best Student Paper (Honorable Mention) at Urban Economics Association North American Meeting 2020
Using 391 high-skilled firm entries in the U.S. from 1990–2010, we estimate the effects of the firm entry on incumbent residents’ consumption, finances, and mobility. We compare outcomes for residents living close to the entry location with those living far away while controlling for their proximity to potential high-skilled firm entry sites. We find high-skilled incumbents, especially homeowners, benefit. Low-skilled incumbents on average benefit less. For a representative firm entry with 1000 new employees entering a metropolitan area with a population of 1.1 million, the aggregate welfare benefit across all incumbents is an annual equivalent of $25 million. Low skilled renters living within 10 minutes from the entry bear the largest costs.
Presented at: The Pennsylvania State University (Smeal), USC (Price), University of Utah (David Eccles), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Notre Dame, UNC (Kenan–Flagler), USC (Marshall), California State University–Fullerton, National University of Singapore (Real Estate), UCLA (Anderson), NYU (Furman), Washington University in St. Louis, University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore (Business School), UNC Working Group on Economic Development, MFA 2023, AREUEA National Conference 2022, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2022, Quantitative Spatial Economics Junior Workshop 2021, NBER Summer Institute: Urban/Real Estate 2021, UEA North American Meeting 2020
Funding: Shultz Graduate Student Fellowship in Economic Policy, Stanford Center for Computational Social Science Research Award
Media: Kenan Institute UNC Affordable Housing Symposium Discussion with Matthew Kahn
"Identifying Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from Grocery Store Openings"
with Qianyang Zhang and Xiang Zhang
We estimate the strengths of agglomeration spillovers in the local non-tradable service sector using 413 grocery store openings in the U.S. in 2018-2019. We combine deep learning tools with propensity score estimation to find counterfactual opening sites and compare business outcomes surrounding actual and counterfactual sites. We find openings of grocery stores lead to significant growth in foot traffic to their opening locations and a 39 percent increase in foot traffic to businesses within 0.1 miles. The spillovers of demand are strongest between new grocery stores and businesses in wholesale and retail and hospitality services. We also find that grocery store openings lead to a 6.9 percentage point higher growth in the number of businesses within 0.1 miles of the openings 0-3 years later.
Presented at: UEA European Meeting 2024, Online Spatial & Urban Seminar 2024, NBER Summer Institute: Real Estate 2023, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2023, Eastern-FA 2023, RERI Annual Conference 2023, AREUEA National Conference 2023, CICF 2023, UEA North American Meeting 2023
Funding: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) funding
"Do CEOs Know Best? Evidence from China"
with Nicholas Bloom, Hong Cheng, Mark Duggan, Hongbin Li
We analyze a new management survey for around 1,000 firms and 10,000 employees across two large provinces in China. The unique aspect of this survey is it collected management data from the CEO, a random sample of senior managers and workers. We document four main results. First, management scores, much like productivity, have a wide spread with a long left-tail of poorly managed firms. This distribution of management scores is similar for CEOs, senior managers, and workers management, and appears broadly reasonable compared to US scores for similar questions. Moreover, for all groups these scores correlate with firm performance, suggesting all employees within the firm are (at least partly) aware of their firms’ managerial abilities. Second, the scores across the groups are significantly cross-correlated, but far from completely. This suggests that while different levels of the firm have similar views on the firms’ management capabilities, they do not fully agree. Third, we find that the CEO’s management scores are the most predictive of firm performance, followed by the senior managers and then the workers. Hence, CEOs do appear to know best about their firms' management strengths and weaknesses. Fourth, within-firm management score dispersion is negatively correlated with investment and R&D intensity, suggesting long-run planning is linked with greater consistency in management across levels in firms.
Status: Updated results with the second wave of CEES available upon request. Third wave of survey pending
Research Briefs: VoxChina
"The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
American Economic Review, Vol.109, No.9 (September 2019)
Published version, Final draft (March 2019)
Media: WSJ NYT Bloomberg Economist Stanford GSB NPR Freakonomics Radio
Research Briefs: Brookings Cato
"Which Landlords Pay for Rent Control? Heterogeneous Landlord Response to San Francisco’s Rent Control Expansion"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
AEA Papers and Proceedings, Vol.109, (May 2019)
[Published version] [Final draft (February 2019)] [Appendix]
"The International Empirics of Management"
with Daniela Scur, et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol.121, No.45 (November 2024)
"Distributional Effects of Adverse Economic Shocks Through Firm Production Networks"
with Turk Al-Sabah
"Who Benefits from Rent Control? The Equilibrium Consequences of San Francisco’s Rent Control Expansion"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
Subsumes the structural model analysis from our original NBER WP No. 24181