Why Better Housing Policy Would Not Fill the Demand Gap

Inspired by Noah Smith's tweets, I thought I would give a quick response to Brad DeLong's post arguing that better housing policy offers a quick way to fill much of the gap created by the collapse of the bubble. Brad has two contentions. First that years of very low building has led to huge pent-up demand for new housing units and second that if underwater homeowners could refinance their homes then we would see much more consumption.

Taking these in turn, Brad uses a trend line for housing c...