A considerable housing boom has been a key feature of persistently large saving-investment imbalances in New Zealand over the past decade. Wealth is concentrated to a greater extent in property compared to most other OECD countries, leaving households and the banking system heavily exposed to a...

This paper analyses the factors influencing the level and volatility of real house prices in a panel of OECD countries over the period 1980-2005. Results suggest that real house prices tend to rise proportionally with real household incomes, while declines in structural unemployment and real...

This paper compares a number of housing policies such as housing taxation, land use and rental regulations and social housing policies for OECD countries relying on new data. Based on a range of econometric analyses, it also investigates whether these housing-related policies achieve their...

Housing markets have played a prominent role in macroeconomic developments over recent years. For a great part of the 2000s, buoyant housing markets have contributed to sustained economic activity in most OECD countries. But many markets overheated and the collapse of the US subprime mortgage...

House prices have increased significantly in Canada over the past decade, driving household debt and residential construction activity to historical highs. Although macro-prudential tightening has slowed the pace of household borrowing in the last few years, house prices have continued to trend...

In the vast majority of OECD economies, house prices in real terms have been moving up strongly since the mid-1990s. Because of the important role housing wealth has been playing during the current upswing, this paper will look more closely at what is underlying these developments for 18 OECD...

Despite a high level of homeownership, the housing market in Poland is suffering from an important shortage. The difference between the number households and available dwellings, the number of dwellings per thousand inhabitants, and the availability of basic amenities (especially in rural areas)...

The Irish housing market is very buoyant. The housing boom is driven by strong economic growth, dynamic demographics and low interest rates. However, large tax advantages and relatively lenient credit policies by banks have also played their part, and prices may have become overvalued. To the...

The government has introduced five policy packages since August 2005 to stabilise house prices, mainly due to concerns about possible spill-overs from the capital region to other parts of the country, even though the increase on a nation-wide basis has been modest compared to other OECD...

Homeownership rates have increased significantly in many OECD countries over recent decades. Using micro-econometric decomposition techniques, this paper shows that part of this increase can be explained by changes in the characteristics of households, including age, household structure, incomes...