Income Gains and the Geography of the US Home Ownership Boom, 1940 to 1960

Income and home ownership both surged in the United States between 1940 and 1960. We use cross-place variation in changes in real income to assess the importance of income gains to the mid-century homeownership boom. OLS and IV estimates suggest that a large share of the overall increase in homeownership was attributable to wage gains that were both large on average and widely spread across workers. This research complements the literatures on how New Deal mortgage market innovations and the World War II and Korean War GI Bills promoted home ownership in this period.