This paper delivers new evidence on the individual and policy drivers of residential mobility, covering a wide range of housing-related policies and conditions but also other relevant policy areas. The analysis uses household-level micro datasets allowing for an investigation of the drivers of...

Spain is a highly decentralised country, making the effective implementation of national reforms dependent on regional policies. Some regional disparities are high and need to be reduced. High regional dispersion in education and job outcomes, compounded by low inter-regional mobility, emerge as...

Housing conditions in Belgium are among the best in OECD countries according to the Better Life Index, as dwellings are of high quality and large, and housing costs are average. However, the steep increase in house prices since 2003 has put market access for first-time buyers under pressure....

Household debt has risen markedly since the turn of the century and stands at a historically high level in most OECD countries. This paper offers an overview of developments in household debt over the past decades across a large sample of OECD countries, highlighting both common trends and...

Investment has rebounded during the recent economic revival, but from a low level. The investment slump during the crisis was mostly caused by a fall in residential investment. However, business investment has been trending downwards since 1990, holding back capital stock accumulation and...

This Working Paper studies ways to stimulate the private rental sector (PRS) of the housing market – and compares experiences with policies and reforms in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the Czech Republic. Although in many countries the PRS has decreased in importance since the Second...

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...

The trend rise of house prices in many OECD countries suggests weakness in the adjustment of supply to demand. This paper estimates long-term elasticities of housing supply to prices in OECD countries before exploring their drivers with a focus on policies. It finds a significant association...

Making housing more affordable ranks high on the policy agenda across the world. One way to achieve affordable housing is to ensure sufficiently elastic supply of the housing stock in response to demand shocks. This paper aims at disentangling policy from non-policy drivers in explaining...

Housing prices have been growing strongly in Luxembourg, stoked by population growth, a high rate of household formation and limited use of land available for construction. Increases in price-to-income ratio mainly reflect high valuations of residential real estate, which rise faster than...