A number of OECD countries experienced an environment of low interest rates and a rapid increase in housing market activity during the last decade. Previous work suggests three potential explanations for these events: expansionary monetary policy, capital inflows due to a global savings glut and...

A range of hypotheses have been put forward to explain the boom in house prices that occurred in the United States from the mid-1990s to 2007. This paper considers the relative importance of two of these hypotheses. First, global imbalances increased liquidity in the US financial system, driving...

This paper constructs a data set on stocks of bilateral external assets and liabilities for a group of 18 countries, including developed and emerging economies. The data set covers the years 1980 to 2005 and distinguishes between four asset classes: foreign direct investment, portfolio equity,...