The marginal value of public pension wealth: Evidence from border house prices

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Aiello, Darren; Bernstein, Asaf; Kargar, Mahyar; Lewis, Ryan; Schwert, Michael
• 署名单位: Brigham Young University; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104134
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Public finance; pensions; house prices

摘要

We study how state pension windfalls affect property prices near state borders, where theory suggests real estate reflects the value of additional public resources. Windfalls, representing a source of state revenue about half the size of total taxes, provide economically significant and plausibly exogenous variation in fiscal conditions. We find that each dollar of pension asset returns increases border house prices by approximately two dollars, suggesting that governments allocate additional funds towards high-value projects or tax abatement rather than wasting incremental resources. Evidence of larger effects in financially constrained municipalities highlights how fiscal resources amplify welfare effects of economic shocks.