Mark Toth

Ph.D. candidate in economics

About me

I am a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Bonn. In my research, I explore the intersection of macroeconomics and spatial economics with a focus on housing markets. My approach is equally theoretical and empirical. Please find my CV here.

Papers

Residential concentration dampens monetary policy transmission
Work in progress.

This paper investigates whether the spatial structure of housing matters for monetary policy transmission. First, I incorporate spatial structure into a monetary business cycle model. In my model, spatial structure matters economically through households' location preferences and residential externalities, summarized in the novel measure residential concentration. I find that residential concentration dampens consumption responses to monetary policy shocks. Then, using geospatial data based on satellite imagery, I create a model-consistent empirical measure of residential concentration for US and Eurozone regions. I empirically validate my theoretical finding, employing residential concentration as a state variable in state-dependent local projections.

Spatial distribution of housing liquidity
With Francisco Amaral and Jonas Zdrzalek.
Kiel Working Paper No. 2284.

This paper examines the relationship between location, liquidity, and prices in housing markets. We construct spatial datasets for German and U.S. cities and show that liquidity and prices decline with distance to the city center. To rationalize these results, we build a structural model with spatial search frictions. We argue that location preferences concentrate buyers in central areas, making markets tighter, more liquid, and driving up prices. Counterfactuals show that suppressing search frictions raises welfare and prices, especially in peripheral areas. Our findings highlight the importance of demand-side preferences and search frictions for understanding liquidity and asset prices.