Housing and the Financial Crisis.

• Position: Bureau Books - Conference notes

Housing and the Financial Crisis, an NBER Conference Report edited by Edward Glaeser and Todd Sinai, is avail-able from the University of Chicago Press this summer.

Conventional wisdom once held that housing prices could not fall. But the spectacular boom and bust of the housing market during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and millions of foreclosed homeowners, have made it clear that housing is no different from any other asset in its ability to climb and to crash.

This volume looks at what happened to prices and construction, both during and after the housing boom, in different parts of the American housing market. It helps to explain why certain areas experienced less volatility than others. It also examines the causes of the boom and bust, including the availability of credit, the perceived reduction in...