Research

Research Interests

Linking Economics and Psychology

Grace’s research centers on the implications of behavioral economics and psychology on our understanding of housing consumption and the housing market. Her first line of research explores the potential impact of differences and inequality in housing consumption as a widening income gap is translated to a consumption gap. Combining information on reported well-being measures, time use and housing characteristics, she discovers that while neither the amount of time spent at home nor the per square foot price of one’s residence relates significantly to time use patterns, experienced emotions or general happiness; the amount of space per person plays a more important role. Homeownership turns out to be a poor predictor of experienced emotions, the amount of time – or quality time – with family, general happiness or civil participation such as volunteering or religious activities. More surprisingly, it relates to a much higher level of reported pain derived from home. She continues to explore how housing consumption might be linked to well-being, even after differences in demographics and income are accounted for, in terms of the positional nature of housing.

Her second line of research focuses on situations where behaviors of housing market participants might deviate from predictions of classical economic theories and consequently have an impact on market outcomes. In her studies of the Hong Kong housing market, she derives her conclusions from within-city comparisons of representative panel data sets, which alleviate comparability and selection problems in much of the housing literature.