This paper first compares house price cycles in advanced and emerging economies using a new quarterly house price dataset covering the period 1990- 2012. It is found that that house prices in emerging economies grow faster, are more volatile, less persistent and less synchronized across...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest motive by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment: rational, leveraged...