Graduation Year

2021

Date of Submission

11-2020

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Professor David Bjerk

Abstract

Pricing volatility has long been a tough topic because there is no research that can confidently pinpoint the volatility to any set of fundamental values like interest rate, earning, or construction cost. It is especially important to get an understanding for price volatility because there are financial, social, and economical consequences if consumers make decisions without understanding the dynamics. Literatures such as Glaeser et al. (2008) and Huang and Tang (2012) believe supply constraints have a huge effect on the price volatility from 1982 to 2009. There are two major types of supply constraints: regulatory and geographic. I focused on regulatory constraints. With data from after the 2008 recession, I reexamine the relationship between regulatory constraints and price change. I am able to find that greater regulatory constraint is linked to greater price appreciation, but the relationship is less clear when consequences of the recession, like unemployment rate, is factored in. Glaeser et al. (2008) faced similar problems in his paper, and it is shown by Huang and Tang (2012) that the sampling period is very important when estimating the relationship between regulatory constraint and price change. This can potentially indicate that each housing cycle has different factors that contribute to the price volatility.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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