Making the Housing Market More Resilient for Homeowners, Neighborhoods, and the Economy

Today we start a special miniseries on the idea of economic resiliency. Over the course of several weeks, we’ll be diving into three distinct policy areas to talk about ways policymakers can help make consumers, specific markets, and the entire economy better able to withstand shocks and crises.

To help guide us through the series, we'll be joined by a special co-host, Brian Knight. Brian is a scholar here at Mercatus, directing our work on financial regulation, and is the perfect person to both contribute policy expertise and ask some probing questions of our additional guests as we work our way through the series.

For today’s episode, we’re starting at the only place it makes sense to start a series about financial resiliency: the housing market. Often considered a primary source of the 2008 financial crisis, housing has gone from being considered the safest and most reliable markets in the US economy to one viewed with suspicion.

Luckily for us, we have two extremely well-qualified folks in the studio today to help walk us through the past, present, and, hopefully, future of housing in the United States, and over the next 30 minutes or so, we’ll hopefully land on some ideas for making housing more resilient for everyone.

First, we welcome back to the show Emily Hamilton. Emily is an economist here at Mercatus specializing in state and local policy. Emily’s research often focuses on land use regulations, looking at the local, state, and federal laws that play a significant role in shaping where and how people live.

And to round-out the group I’m very happy to welcome Kevin Erdmann. Kevin is a visiting fellow with the Mercatus Center, and just released a new book entitled Shut Out that offers a bit of a contrarian take on the housing boom and bust.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadMReese.

Today's What's on Tap beer is the Partly Cloudy New England Style IPA from Solace Brewing in Sterling, VA.