Submission Statement: The SF Fed had an article (not reflective of their views they always stress) that blamed low population growth and high incomes for the housing affordability crisis. Housing Affordability and Housing Demand – San Francisco Fed
A simple incentive argument and understanding of the source of constraint never hurt though. Never Reason from a Population Change
Posted by Adminisnotadmin
3 Comments
A gem from my liberal NIMBY boomer parents: “if prices were going up because there aren’t enough homes for all the people, then how come prices keep going up in MA even when the population is going down?”
I read it, it was deeply stupid. Like so dumb it was obviously propaganda. I legitimately do not respect them. Even an unimpressive master student could poke holes in it all day.
I remember that Louie et al. (2025) article getting posted in a sister sub and I looked at the regression table and it said less building constraints still had a statistically significant negative effect on prices (which the authors noted was small when adjusting for…. income and *population* growth). Also that in their sample less building constraints did not result in more housing being built so there is a counterfactual where more houses do get built and prices do decrease (or grow at a slower rate) which is not addressed.