Essays in labor and public economics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- How do large-scale shocks affect individuals and firms? Answering that question has been a motivating theme in my research agenda, which is taken up here through the lens of foreclosures on home mortgages during the financial crisis. Foreclosures grew by 200-400% across counties and foreclosures per open mortgage grew by a factor of five between 2006 and 2011. The surge in foreclosures was unprecedented—far above levels observed in the post-war U.S. era. This dissertation examines the causal effects of these foreclosures on the real economy in several dimensions. The first chapter examines how county foreclosures affect local labor market outcomes, such as employment and hiring, and the mechanism behind these declines. Foreclosures are instrumented using quasi-experimental variation in the timing and magnitude of interest rate changes on adjustable rate mortgages, which involve contractually and pre-determined changes in monthly mortgage payments based on national interest rates. These interest rate changes generate substantial movement in the frequency of foreclosures, but are plausibly exogenous because of their idiosyncratic and discontinuous nature. I find declines in labor market operates operating primarily through a banking sector channel. The second chapter examines how zipcode foreclosures affect individual well-being and community dynamism. Measures of well-being are obtained based on a partnership with Gallup over their U.S. Daily Poll, capturing overall sentiment. Using the same identification strategy, I show that increases in foreclosures are associated with declines in well-being even among individuals who do not experience foreclosure themselves, consistent with spillover effects. The third chapter examines what happened to these individuals who were foreclosed upon and why. How did they fare and why did they move where they move? An important theme in this paper is the importance of local factors—for example, if local factors deteriorate, then individuals are less likely to move to a better subsequent location, reflecting the importance of bargaining power in the job search process. Much more work is required to understand how mortgage markets interact with firm outcomes and the underlying mobility decisions among individuals. I look forward to pursuing further work in these areas in the years that follow.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Makridis, Christos Andreas |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Bloom, Nick, 1973- |
| Thesis advisor | Bloom, Nick, 1973- |
| Thesis advisor | Duggan, Mark G. (Mark Gregory) |
| Thesis advisor | Pistaferri, Luigi |
| Thesis advisor | Sweeney, James L |
| Degree committee member | Duggan, Mark G. (Mark Gregory) |
| Degree committee member | Pistaferri, Luigi |
| Degree committee member | Sweeney, James L |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Management Science and Engineering. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Christos Andreas Makridis. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Management Science and Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Christos Andreas Makridis
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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