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Housing Wealth, Property Taxes, and Labor Supply among the Elderly

Lingxiao Zhao¹; Gregory S. Burge²

¹ Southwestern University of Finance and Economics · ² University of Oklahoma

We investigate the relationship between housing wealth, property taxes, and elderly labor supply using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Survey spanning the recent boom/bust housing cycle. When combined with MSA-specific house price indexes, the data provide plausibly exogenous variation in housing wealth, identified through within-MSA renter/homeowner comparisons. Our findings suggest that elderly households respond to variation in housing wealth and property taxes in the predicted opposing directions, that wealth influences labor supply to a lesser extent than factors like health and marital status, and that the effect of housing wealth on labor supply varies by gender and age.

DOI

10.1086/687534

Volume

35 (1)

Pages

227-263

Language

en

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BibTeX

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