Download or read book Essays on Housing Prices written by Yifan Chen and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation examines the dynamics between housing prices, firms, and households. The first chapter focuses on sequential information revelation in the housing markets; the second chapter investigates the impact of house price appreciation on the returns of value versus growth firms; the third chapter estimates the effect of gun control on home values. In Chapter 1, I use Amazon's progressive revelation of its new headquarters locations in Virginia and New York to demonstrate that the housing market fully incorporates information about future demand well before disclosure. Spatial difference-in-differences analysis shows that housing prices near the Virginia headquarters exhibit 4.9% premia before Amazon's headquarters decision but no additional increase upon decision. Price premia for New York reach 17.5% before the decision but disappear once Amazon cancels the headquarters. Other finalist cities exhibit no price premia, precluding the possibility of speculation. Overall, this study suggests that the housing market can quickly incorporate private information about future demand shocks. In Chapter 2, I investigate the value-growth premium puzzle by merging insights from urban economics and finance that relate firm location to its stock performance. The value-growth premium in locations with high historical house price appreciation is 3.6% per year larger than the premium in areas that experienced little house price appreciation. The results support investment-based models explaining the value premium; moreover I find the house price channel reduces returns of growth firms rather than increasing returns of value firms. House price appreciation remains significant after controlling for common explanations of the premium. In Chapter 3, using cross-border variation in the timing of state gun control law passage dates, I find that the introduction of universal background checks for gun sales results in a roughly 2.3 percent decline in housing prices on average. I find a more significant decrease in housing prices, i.e., up to 5.3 percent, if the state is neighboring a Republican rather than a Democratic state. This result is robust to several specification tests and does not appear to be associated with neighborhood crime rate changes.