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Dave Stuhlsatz's avatar

These recent posts have been a good synthesis of the major points of your research. Occasionally, I catch myself grumbling about your focus on the Great Recession---"why is Kevin obsessed with stuff that happened nearly 20 years ago...." Then, I remind myself that the 2005-2009 period was exceptional because Fed policy was bad for longer than it should have been. In retrospect, it wasn't a causal event in our housing problems, but rather a revealing moment. I don't feel comfortable making the claim that zoning regulations caused the Great Recession, although they played, and continue to play, a big role in price variations. I think that a big problem, which feeds zoning regulations and other bad policy decisions, is the attitude that American homeowners have about their house as an investment vehicle that is supposed to outpace NGDP growth rates. This attitude feeds a lot of intergenerational strife, to say the least.

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