A hat tip to [[Calculated Risk]](http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2006/03/shiller-on-housing.html) for pointing me to this post on [[Economist’s View]](http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/03/shiller_longter.html) that discusses Shiller’s long-term views on the current housing boom and presents much of his recent paper _Long-Term Perspectives on the Current Boom in Home Prices_.

_Robert Shiller looks at over 100 years of data and asks the question every homeowner wants to know: what is the short-term and long-term prognosis for real estate values? The news isn’t reassuring, but luckily risk markets are being developed to help people hedge or buy insurance against the risk that Shiller unveils._ His controlled series using housing along a canal is fascinating.

For the free full version of Shiller’s work as a download which requires registration, [go here](http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol3/iss4/art4/).

Professor Shiller has been calling for crash of housing for the past 5-6 years and he has focused on more pyschological reasons. He is consisent with his point, similar the way the Economist magazine is on this position. Bearish on housing.

Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Researh also has a paper out: _The Menace of an Unchecked Housing Bubble_

_An unprecedented run-up in the stock market propelled the U.S. economy in the late nineties and now an unprecedented run-up in house prices is propelling the current recovery. According to Dean Baker, like the stock bubble, the housing bubble will burst. Eventually, it must. When it does, the economy will be thrown into a severe recession, and tens of millions of homeowners, who never imagined that house prices could fall, likely will face serious hardships._

For the free full version of Baker’s work as a download which requires registration, [go here](http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol3/iss4/art4/).

I subscribe to me Baker’s email list and find much of the publication very informative as well. He’s bearish on housing too.

UPDATE

_To digress a bit:_

Although Austin Powers made a case against the Dutch, (wink) here’s one to invoke sympathy. In Lisa Chamberlain’s article [Pressing a Claim for Dutch History [NYT]](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/realestate/29corbin.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print) she discusses the eminent domain taking of land by the Metropolitan Transit Authority from the Collegiate Church Corporation which has owned it for 282 years.

The controversies covering eminent domain takings appear to be on the rise as government authorities have more lattitude than ever before. More to come.


One Comment

  1. Zephyr March 31, 2006 at 1:38 am

    Baker has always been bearish on housing… even when prices were less than half of what they are today.

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