Bombs, homes, and jobs: Revisiting the Oswald hypothesis for Germany

摘要

Andrew Oswald (1996) hypothesized that homeownership restricts commercial development and labour mobility, increasing unemployment. Instrumenting homeownership with WWII Allied bombing for a German regional panel, we find homeownership has a large positive effect on unemployment, and homeownership decreases labour mobility. (c) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.