Seminar Series “Macroeconomics and Labor Markets”, 16 July 2024

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PantherMedia / Bernd Schmidt

We are pleased to invite you to the seminar series on “Macroeconomics and Labor Markets“ organized by the Chair of Macroeconomics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Prof. Merkl, the Chair of Global Governance and International Trade at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Prof. Moser, and the Competence Field Macroeconomics of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Researchers of both institutions, as well as national and international guests, present their current work at the intersection of labor- and macroeconomics.

The next seminar will be held on Tuesday, July 16, 12 noon to 1.30 (German time).

The seminar will take place in-person at the IAB in room E10.

Nicolas Syrichas (FU Berlin) will talk about

“Understanding Spatial House Price Dynamics in a Housing Boom” (joint work with Leo Kaas and Georgi Kocharkov)

Abstract

We examine the evolution of spatial house price dispersion during Germany’s recent housing boom. Using a dataset of sales listings, we find that house price dispersion has significantly increased, which is driven entirely by rising price variation across postal codes. We show that both price divergence across labor market regions and widening spatial price variation within these regions are important factors for this trend. We propose and estimate a directed search model of the housing market to understand the driving forces of rising spatial price dispersion, highlighting the role of housing supply, housing demand and frictions in the matching process between buyers and sellers. While both shifts in housing supply and housing demand matter for overall price increases and for regional divergence, we find that variation in housing demand is the primary factor contributing to the widening spatial dispersion within labor market regions.