For dual-earner, college educated heterosexual couples, I examine the relative weight of spouse career prospects in deciding where to live. I show that a higher expected wage for husband in a potential destination tends to make it more attractive for the household, relative to the same increase in expected wage for wife. More importantly, this gap monotonically diminishes with age. I examine several hypotheses for this phenomenon, among which the internal division of labor is the most plausible. I also show that this difference can’t be interpreted as a difference in spouses’ bargaining power, as the estimated bargaining power from the model shows almost no gender imbalance.

Using Census data in 2005-2010, I estimate the mobility response and labor market outcomes of negative equity homeowners to the China trade shock, and compare them to other homeowners. I do not find any significant evidence for a difference between two groups in terms of mobility, employment along intensive and extensive margin, and wages, suggesting the fact that house lock-in effect did not have a great influence on the pattern of wages and employment after China shock. The only exception is the home owners with a large negative equity for which wages dropped relative to others.

Despite the consensus on the inefficiencies it creates in the housing market, rent stabilization is often advocated by tenant groups as a housing affordability policy. I show that contrary to usual belief, the main benefit of rent regulation for tenants is not the protection it provides against higher rent increases over time. Rather, rent regulation is attractive mainly due to fact that it is associated with lower quality and less expensive units, which is a segment of rental market having a higher demand. In this sense, rent regulation is attractive due to its unfortunate side effect, which is discouraging maintenance and increasing the supply of lower quality units.