Late starters or excluded generations? A cohort
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England has very volatile house prices. Using survey data spanning multiple house-price cycles over nearly forty years, we document the association between house prices and homeownership at age thirty. We then use synthetic cohort methods to assess whether differences in early ownership rates persist in later life. We find that ownership rates at age thirty have varied substantially, with a significant negative association with prices. Measurement error problems - attenuation and other biases - complicate an analysis of the persistence of these differences in ownership. We use two methods to deal with this. Both indicate that cohorts with low ownership rates at age thirty close about 80% of the ownership gap by age forty.
Authors

Research Associate University of Bologna
Matthew is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna focusing on consumption and savings choices and how policy affects them.
Research Associate University of Bologna
Renata is an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna and IFS Research Associate, working on household consumption, saving and labour supply.

Research Fellow University of Michigan
Tom is a Research Fellow at IFS, a Research Professor for the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2012.1210
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
R, Bottazzi and T, Crossley and M, Wakefield. (2012). Late starters or excluded generations? A cohort analysis of catch up in home ownership in England. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/late-starters-or-excluded-generations-cohort-analysis-catch-home-ownership-england (accessed: 8 February 2025).
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