Yasmine van der Straten - Nova Business School
“Flooded House or Underwater Mortgage? The Macrofinancial Implications of Climate Change and Adaptation”
Abstract
I study how climate change affects housing markets, mortgage credit, and private adaptation in a general-equilibrium framework with overlapping generations. Households are exposed to physical climate risks that damage housing and degrade land, which is inelastically supplied. While exposure to future climate risk lowers expected resale values, realized climate damages reduce habitable land, driving house prices up over time through scarcity. In frictionless markets, forward-looking prices support efficient private adaptation. However, constrained households underinvest in resilience, implying that pricing alone may be insufficient. Unequal adaptation amplifies wealth inequality and accelerates land degradation. Over generations, the adaptation gap widens endogenously as tightening credit constraints further limit investment in resilience. A counterfactual shift from constrained homeownership to landlord-based ownership shows that separating adaptation investment from borrowing constraints can restore efficiency.
Additional information:
- Speaker: Yasmine van der Straten
- Time: Wednesday, 15.04.2026, 14:45 - 16:00
- Location: Faculty Lounge, Room 0.036
- Further links:
- Organizer: Finance Group
- Contact:
- Almut Lunkenheimer
- +49 228 73-9228
- ifs@uni-bonn.de