Owner-occupied housing today constitutes the largest single source of wealth in the United
States. Clearly, the future of that wealth is not just of intrinsic interest but also has important
implications for the nation's macroeconomy. In a recent paper, Mankiw and Weil [26] have
suggested that after many decades of real value increases, residential home prices in the
next 10 years should experience significant real value declines. This reversal is predicted
because of the future demographic profile of the country in which slower household …