The paper provides a systematic empirical analysis of the role of the housing market in the macroeconomy in the US and in the euro area. First, it establishes some stylised facts concerning key variables in the housing market, such as the real house price, residential investment and mortgage...

This paper examines the time varying dispersion in city house price levels across the four biggest euro area countries compared with those in the United States. Using available city-level data over the period 1987-2008, it tests for price convergence and analyses key factors explaining price...

Since the beginnings of the eighties house prices in the Netherlands haveincreased steadily and considerably. In this paper we study the effect of this developmenton the demand for second mortgages and on the savings of Dutch households. We use the dataof the Dutch socio-economic panel for the...

Cross-country differences in homeownership rates are large and persistent over time, with homeownership rates ranging from 44% in Switzerland to 83% in Spain. This paper investigates whether cultures-defined as behavioral attitudes passed across generations-may value homeownership differently,...

This paper presents new evidence on the impact of the preferential treatment of owner-occupied housing in Europe. We find that tax benefits to homeowners reduce the user cost of housing capital by almost 40 percent compared to the efficient level under neutral taxation. On average, the tax...