Interaction between housing prices and household borrowing: The Finnish case

Employing time series econometrics this study shows that there has been a significant two-way interaction between housing prices and housing loan stock in Finland since the financial liberalization in the late 1980s. Before the financial deregulation the interaction was substantially weaker. Furthermore, housing appreciation has a notable positive impact on the outstanding consumption loan stock. It appears that there is no similar relationship between stock prices and credit. Understanding the two-way interaction between housing prices and credit is of importance, since the interdependence is likely to augment boom-bust cycles in the economy and increase the fragility of the financial sector.