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Shut Out: How a Housing Shortage Caused the Great Recession and Crippled Our Economy (Mercatus Center at George Mason University)

by Kevin Erdmann (Author)

10

Part of: Mercatus Center at George Mason University (3 books)

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The United States suffers from a shortage of well-placed homes. This was true even at the peak of the housing boom in 2005. Using a broad array of evidence on housing inflation, income, migration, homeownership trends, and international comparisons, Shut Out demonstrates that high home prices have been largely caused by the constrained housing supply in a handful of magnet cities leading the new economy.

The same phenomenon is occurring in leading countries across the globe. Gentrifying cities have become exclusionary bastions in the new postindustrial economy. The US housing bubble that peaked in 2005 is more accurately described as a refugee crisis than a credit bubble. Surging demand for limited urban housing triggered a spike of migration away from the magnet cities among households with moderate and lower incomes who could no longer afford to remain, causing a brief contagion of high prices in the cities where the migrants moved.

In this book, author Kevin Erdmann observes that the housing bubble has been broadly and incorrectly attributed to various “excesses.” Policymakers and economists concluded that our key challenge was that we had built too many homes. This misdiagnosis of the problem, according to Erdmann, led to misguided public polices, which were the primary cause of the subsequent financial crisis. A sort of moral panic about supposed excesses in home lending and construction led to destabilizing monetary and regulatory decisions. As the economy slumped, a sense of fatalism prevented the government from responding appropriately to the worsening situation.

Shut Out provides a much-needed correction to the causes and consequences of financial crises and secular stagnation.

ISBN-10

1538122146
ISBN-13

978-1538122143
Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publication date

December 17, 2018
Part of series

Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Language

English
Dimensions

6.32 x 1.01 x 9 inches
Print length

322 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Kevin Erdmann has put forward the radical thesis that restrictions on housing supply have been at the center of America’s macroeconomic dilemmas, in addition to raising the cost of living for ordinary Americans. This is one of the few truly new ideas in the debate over the Great Recession. While I still am not sure how much I agree, I find myself thinking about Kevin’s ideas often, and they grow on my mind. Kevin has poured his heart and soul into making the case in this fascinating new book.” -- Tyler Cowen, author, "Stubborn Attachments," and blogger, "Marginal Revolution"

“Do you believe that you know what happened during the housing bubble and bust? Think again. Kevin Erdmann has amassed a wealth of fascinating data that sheds new light on what actually went wrong with America’s housing market. The basic problem was not too much building or too much lending to low-income people, but rather restrictive housing-development laws pushed people out of ‘closed-access cities’ on the two coasts and into the ‘contagion cities’ in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida that were the epicenter of the housing boom. This book sheds important new light on a number of issues beyond housing, including monetary policy, income inequality, and international investment flows.” -- Scott Sumner, author, "The Midas Paradox," and blogger, "The Money Illusion"

“Kevin Erdmann challenges the most well-known explanations for the housing crash. He argues that the bust, rather than the boom, is the truly exceptional story—a result of excessive restrictive credit policy, borne out a lack of understanding of what caused the boom. One needn’t agree with his story in full to see that he scores extremely important points and adds a perspective that has been missing from discussions and public policy responses to the housing crash. Fixing supply constraints in rich areas, Erdmann shows, will not only make us richer by allowing people to move to areas where they can get higher wages; it will also make our economy sturdier and less prone to the type of disasters that set back the national and, indeed, the world economy in 2007–08.” -- David Schleicher, Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Even readers convinced by Erdmann’s analysis of the housing market may find this inadequate as a narrative of the financial crisis. Nevertheless, that may be too much to expect of one book. Shut Out is still a provocative and illuminating read, which covers far more ground than this review, mostly on the causes and consequences of closed access cities. Erdmann, interestingly, is not a PhD economist, but a former small business owner with a master’s in finance. As a member of the PhD tribe, I occasionally found myself wishing for more equations and regression coefficients, and simpler charts. But still, somebody should give him an honorary degree.

― Economic Record

About the Author

Kevin Erdmann was a small business owner for 17 years. In 2010, he sold his business and earned his master’s degree in finance from the University of Arizona, which grounded his real-world experience of investing in the rigor of the academy.

In 2013, he began blogging at idiosyncraticwhisk.com to share his contrarian observations about investment strategies and research. He was surprised to uncover evidence that seemed to contradict conventional narrative and common assumptions about the housing bubble and the financial crisis. As the evidence accumulated, he developed a new account of the causes of the housing bubble and financial crisis. That account eventually became a two-book project, Shut Out and a follow-up book still in development, both of which synthesize and expand on the housing theories he originally published on his blog.

He lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife and three children.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (December 17, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538122146
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538122143
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.32 x 1.01 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,771,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Kevin Erdmann

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Kevin Erdmann is a former small businessman and a researcher in housing, monetary policy, and financial markets. In 2015, Erdmann began to reconsider a range of evidence contradicting commonly held beliefs about the pre-2007 American housing boom. His first book, "Shut Out", along with several extensions to his research, were published with the support of The Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he continued to develop a revolutionary new approach to the practical roles of housing, debt, and money in recent American economic trends.

In "Building from the Ground Up", he continues to unearth unappreciated lessons from the Great Recession and the preceding housing boom, which have attained fresh importance amid growing concerns over housing affordability.

Acclaimed economist Scott Sumner wrote that Erdmann's first book, "Shut Out", "may end up being the most important housing book of the decade." and has called Erdmann "one of the most underrated thinkers in economics."

In the journal, "Economic Record", Declan Trott, of Australia's Department of the Treasury, concluded his review of Erdmann's book, "Shut Out" with, "Erdmann, interestingly, is not a PhD economist, but a former small business owner with a master's in finance. As a member of the PhD tribe, I occasionally found myself wishing for more equations and regression coefficients, and simpler charts. But still, somebody should give him an honorary degree."

His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the National Review, USA Today, and Politico, and it has been featured on C-SPAN.

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Trent McBride

Paradigm shifting analysis

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2019

I mean this as a complement: I was surprised at how repetitive it was. The thesis is fundamentally simple, and can probably be summed up in 3-4 sentences. And then that thesis is repeated in chapter after chapter in different ways. This is highly effective. The first time someone reads it, they might strongly disagree, the second they might see the point, the third they will probably be convinced, and the fourth they will be certain they never saw it any other way! Why make a series of progressively weaker arguments when you can make the same strong argument over and over again.

The epilogue is what moves this book from really good to great, as thorough and complete a defense of open access orders that I have ever read. It's a beautiful fragile thing that has emerged, and is impossible to defend too strongly.

4 people found this helpful

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George75

no index!!!! and not proofread

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2019

at first glance, ambitious book which I'm sympathetic to the drift of, well footnoted, but no index!!!! and not proofread ("San Deigo")

One person found this helpful

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JM

This is an incredible book

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2019

Erdmann's book paints a vivid picture of the injustice and inequality that has resulted from our failure to build enough housing near to jobs and opportunity. Whether you agree or not, it builds a forensic case that the main problem of the last few decades has been a shortage of housing in the right places – not a surplus. That shortage has destroyed lives and opportunities, damaged welfare and the economy, but it has only seen inappropriate and inadequate responses from most politicians. It is a call to arms for everyone who cares about housing, including the new YIMBY movement.

One person found this helpful

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David Siegel

This is a very important book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2019

Verified Purchase

Not only are the common narratives wrong, the alternative narratives are wrong! If you balance Erdmann's research with Scott Sumner's work on "tight money" during the financial crisis, you finally see what happened! The graphs and narrative present all the information to understand the important differences between "closed access," "open access," and "contagion" cities, and that perspective lets you see how it really went down. Fascinating that someone would do this, otherwise it would have been buried forever. Buy two copies and give one to a friend!

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