July 26th, 2008 - Mark Thoma thinks housing supply elasticities may be assymetric
The basic point is that in markets with lots of land, housing may be supplied elastically during booms, but takes a long-time to adjust during price declines. I have reason to think Mark is right.
My 2005 paper with Mayo and Malpezzi found evidence of this; cities that appeared inelastic included Pittsburgh, Toledo, Albany, Buffalo and Providence. None of these cities had upward pressure on housing production; rather, they were losing population and the housing stock took a long time to adjust to the loss.