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Sergey Alexeev

From: Editorial Express Mail System <ee_mailer@editorialexpress.com> on behalf of Hans-Joachim Voth <voth@econ.uzh.ch>

Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2019 9:23 AMTo: Sergey AlexeevSubject: The EJ: Decision on your submission

Dear Sergey:

Thank you for your submission MS 20190342, entitled

"On Australian Exceptionalism: A Cross-Country Comparison of the Effects of Home Ownership on Income Mobility, Inequality and Polarization"

for publication in The Economic Journal. I read your paper, and I have decided to reject without consulting referees. This decision does not necessarily reflect my judgement of the paper's inherent quality. I found your paper interesting and well-written, but not a good match for a general interest journal like the EJ.

While this decision will disappoint, please keep in mind that we can currently only publish around 5% of submissions; in fairness to the authors and to accelerate the turnaround, we have raised the number of papers that we reject without first seeking reports.

I am sorry to write you with this decision and hope that, at the very least, you find the swift decision useful. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work.

Sincerely,

Hans-Joachim Voth voth@econ.uzh.ch Economic Journal

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Sergey Alexeev

From: Editorial Express Mail System <ee_mailer@editorialexpress.com> on behalf of D.S.Prasada Rao <d.rao@uq.edu.au>

Sent: Sunday, 19 May 2019 7:01 AMTo: Sergey AlexeevCc: d.rao@uq.edu.auSubject: Decision on your submission

Dear Dr. Alexeev

I am the editor in charge of your submission.

After having read the paper, I am sorry to inform you that I have decided to reject it without sending it to referees. The paper is essentially an applied econometric exercise and it would be of limited interest to the general readership of the Review. It would probably suit a real estate journal.

Due to a significant increase in the number of submissions to the Review of Income and Wealth we receive we have a rejection rate of 85 percent. My sense is that your paper is not original enough in its method or results to be of sufficient interest to the readership of the Review. I think it is unlikely therefore that the outcome would be successful if I sent it out to referees, and hence that everyone's interests are best served by me rejecting it now rather than in 5-6 months time.

Normally I provide desk rejection decisions within a week. However there has been a delay in this case as i was travelling over the last two weeks.

I thank you for letting us consider your work.

With best regards

Prasada

D.S. Prasada Rao d.rao@uq.edu.authe Review of Income and Wealth

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Sergey Alexeev

From: Paul Carrillo (Journal of Housing Economics ) <EviseSupport@elsevier.com>Sent: Thursday, 5 September 2019 1:03 AMTo: Sergey AlexeevSubject: Decision on your submission to Journal of Housing Economics

Ref: JHEC_2019_79 Title: On Australian Exceptionalism: A Cross-Country Comparison of the Effects of Home Ownership on Income Mobility, Inequality and Polarization Journal: Journal of Housing Economics

Dear Mr. Alexeev,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Journal of Housing Economics .

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Journal of Housing Economics. I have now heard back from one referee who has submitted a thoughtful report, and I have carefully read your paper. The news are mixed. Both the referee and I see potential with your paper, but have some serious concerns which I list below.

1] Contribution

The paper needs to differentiate from the previous literature. The literature in this field is extensive. What is the paper’s contribution relative to, say, Frick et al JHEC 2010? to others? Computing additional distribution statistics does not seem like a large enough contribution to merit publication in a peer reviewed journal. Perhaps if you can dig further into the different ways that imputed rent (IR) could be computed and how different methods could yield different results, you could find a way to differentiate from the literature. We also already know that IR can affect income distribution estimates. Does it affect CHANGES of the distribution over time? One should also expect that the adjustment depends on the housing cycle, correct?

2] Exposition

The paper needs to be rewritten so that its main message is easily conveyed to readers. I am not going to micromanage your paper and give you a list of places where exposition could be improved, but I will just mention the title. The title gives readers false expectations about how home ownership affects income distribution. Instead, your paper is about how imputed rent (not

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just of home owners but of people who pay subsidized rent) can change certain statistics. I will also say that tables and figures should include notes that makes them self-explanatory.

3] Inference

Samples used to compute mobility rates is relatively small (900 or so). How can we be sure that the differences between the adjusted and unadjusted statistics are statistically significant? How does the literature handle this?

I decided to give you an opportunity to revise-and-resubmit your paper at this point. I must say, however, that I will send the paper back to the original reviewer and most likely will seek the advice of one or two new referees. Hence, the final outcome of this submission remains quite uncertain.

If you would like to revise your manuscript, you first need to accept this invitation:

Log into EVISE® at:http://www.evise.com/evise/faces/pages/navigation/NavController.jspx?JRNL_ACR=JHEC;

Locate your manuscript under the header 'My Submissions that need Revisions' on your 'My Author Tasks' view; and

Click on 'Agree to Revise'.

Upon agreeing to revise your manuscript, your revision deadline will be displayed in your 'My Author Tasks' view.

When you are ready, please submit your revision by logging into EVISE® at: http://www.evise.com/evise/faces/pages/navigation/NavController.jspx?JRNL_ACR=JHEC

Journal of Housing Economics values your contribution and I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Paul Carrillo Editor Journal of Housing Economics

Editor and Reviewer Comments: -Reviewer 1

- This is a an interesting manuscript on the impact of imputed rent on various inequality measures such as mobility and polarization.

I feel the paper needs some restructuring. The section between the introduction and data should be moved and the some of the concepts need to be explained more clearly. What is the definition

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of imputed rent used and what does it include and not include? Is reverse mortgage included. See also Balcazar (2017) which discusses the methods of estimating imputed rent, state which methods each panel dataset uses and the limitations and benefits of each.

You also need to explicitly state in the introduction how this work builds on previous imputed rent studies. Highlight the mobility and polarization aspects more. There are many studies which examine imputed rent what makes this one stand out? How is it different from the work of Frick, Yates, Grabka etc.?

I would also discuss the results of the Transition matrices in the results section, perhaps add a Transition matrices subsection there. For readers who do not work on this type of research, transition matrices should be explained and why they are used, alternatives etc. In the results section the results for Australia appear to be a lot different compared to the US and Germany. It would be beneficial to discuss reasons for this in the conclusions.

I believe you results would benefit from an examination of the income distribution and how imputed rent affects those on the curve, as opposed to focusing on just aggregate measures. You could look at the share of income of the different deciles before and after the inclusion of imputed rent.

My main recommendations for the revised submission would be to rearrange the different sections, explicitly state the contribution to the literature and examine the re-ranking of the income distribution.

Please also re-consider the abstract as some of the results are not that clear without having read the manuscript.

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One or more files have been made available to you as part of this decision. You can access them by clicking on the link(s) below.

IGE6_a-review-comments_review_comments.pdf

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