In developing countries, potential home-buyers lack accurate information about housing projects. Insecure property rights in developing countries have led to a rise in litigation against these projects. Information asymmetry between developers and buyers about the litigation status results in overpricing of litigated houses (lemons). We find that the introduction of a reform in India, mandating developers to make details about housing projects public, led to a 5%-6% decline in prices of lemons. Our data on unit level transactions, project details, and buyer characteristics enables us to separate out the price effects across housing sub-markets and income groups. The reform led to a decline in prices of lemons only in the non-luxury housing sub-market, and the highest decline for the poorest income quartile. We provide support for mandatory disclosure laws in developing countries by showing that it reduces market inefficiencies and inequality in information access.

We study how the introduction of a law protecting consumer data privacy affects the cost of credit in the US mortgage market. Our estimates reveal that the California Consumer Protection Act increases loan spreads charged by banks by 8 basis points but that it has no effect on the fixed origination costs charged to borrowers. In contrast, nonbanks do not charge more, possibly because they often resell to government-sponsored enterprises thereby minimizing their compliance costs. Banks also reduce their supply of credit more in lower-income areas, consistent with more informationally intense data collection practices there potentially exposing them to larger legal costs. In sum, our findings suggest that banks pass the CCPA compliance costs to borrowers through higher interest rates and reduce their legal exposure by curtailing credit where more data need to be collected.

This paper examines the effect of information sharing agreements between Multiple Listing Service (MLS) platforms on the economic outcomes of listings. We present a theoretical model involving search and matching frictions that predicts that properties will trade at a price discount in the absence of information sharing. To test the model’s prediction, we capitalize on a temporary suspension in the sharing agreements between MLS platforms in South Florida. We find that listings by a broker that operates in an area where brokers from the other MLS platform also operate significantly (and hence a reliance on brokers from the other MLS platform), trade at a discount during the suspension period. The results also reveal both heterogeneous and liquidity effects. Overall, we highlight the role of sharing agreements in housing prices.

This article investigates the implications of non-disclosure laws on single-family housing markets. States regulate the amount of information disclosed from real estate transactions. Differences in the amount of information available have meaningful impacts on housing markets. We find evidence that appraisals are more biased in states that low levels of information and mortgages have a higher probability of default.