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...

Global external imbalances widened persistently over the last several years and have narrowed abruptly over the course of the financial crisis. Understanding the extent to which structural or cyclical factors may have driven these patterns is important to assess the likely evolution of global...

The past two decades have seen substantial deregulation in the financial sectors of most OECD countries. The main motivation was to improve efficiency within the financial system, but the macroeconomic implications might go beyond this objective with impacts on the business cycle and the...

The substantial decline in private-sector saving rates observed in several OECD countries in the late 1990s coincided in several cases with a sharp increase in household financial net worth. This was seen by many observers as evidence that the strong rise in equity and residential property...

This paper reviews the role of house prices in influencing private consumption and residential investment in OECD countries. Deregulation of the mortgage markets in most OECD countries since the 1970s has made it easier for households to borrow for current consumption on the basis of their...

Turkey is recovering from a severe recession. Once growth gains full speed, the authorities will likely face the challenge of widening external imbalances and of ensuring a smooth functioning of the financial markets. The former will require improving competitiveness, raising domestic saving,...

This paper explores the impact of structural policies on saving, investment, and current accounts in OECD and non-OECD economies. Since the current account effects of structural reforms are often complex and ambiguous from a theoretical perspective, new OECD empirical analysis is carried out....

Using empirical evidence from panel analysis of current account dynamics and of bilateral trade balances, the paper argues that the large German current account surplus during the 2000s can be explained by an increasing gap between productivity growth in manufacturing vis-à-vis services. Such a...

Following Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments before Congress that the FOMC may ‘take a step down in the pace of asset purchases if economic improvement appears to be sustained’, US 10-year interest rates picked up sharply and gross capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs) reversed....

Although there is no single yardstick to gauge the degree of integration, there is ample evidence that financial markets in the euro area have some way to go before national demarcation lines will effectively disappear and financial market integration is satisfactory. While there has been a push...