Housing Market Distortions and the Mortgage Interest Deduction

Authors

Andrew Hanson, Marquette UniversityFollow
Hal Martin, Georgia State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

26 p.

Publication Date

9-2014

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Source Publication

Public Finance Review

Source ISSN

1091-1421

Abstract

Housing market distortions from the mortgage interest deduction (MID) typically focus on a single choice measure such as home size or self-reported amount of debt on a new mortgage. We estimate the amount of mortgage interest deducted on federal tax returns to capture the full range of housing market distortions from the MID. Our primary results show that for every one percentage point increase in the tax rate that applies to deductibility, the amount of mortgage interest deducted increases by US$303 to US$590. Empirical estimates imply elasticities of mortgage interest deducted with respect to the after-tax cost of housing between -0.78 and -1.62, and deadweight loss estimates ranging from 16 to 36 percent of MID tax expenditure.

Comments

Accepted version. Public Finance Review, Vol. 42, No. 5 (September 2014): 582-607. DOI. © 2014 SAGE Publications. Used with permission.

Recommended Citation

Hanson, Andrew and Martin, Hal, "Housing Market Distortions and the Mortgage Interest Deduction" (2014). Economics Faculty Research and Publications. 377.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_fac/377