After a period of stagnation that lasted for almost two decades, German house prices began to grow at an accelerated pace since late 2010. Real house prices that even had been declining in 2000-2008 started to climb up steeply from the second half of 2010, followed by a recovery of construction...

Rising rents in German cities have led to an intense debate about the need for tighter rent controls in housing markets. In April 2015, the so-called rental brake was introduced, which imposes upper bounds for rents in new contracts, in order to immediately slow down the increase of rents in...

The surge in the German house prices starting in 2010 raised fears about the emergence of a speculative bubble. Given a local nature of housing markets, it is not clear to what extent the bubble, if any, is spread across different cities. In this paper, we test for speculative house price...

Am 1. Juni 2016 ist die viel diskutierte Mietpreisbremse ein Jahr in Kraft. Seither wurde sie in 308 Städten eingeführt. Die im Vorfeld geäußerten Befürchtungen, die dringend benötigte Bautätigkeit würde damit massiv ausgebremst, haben sich ebenso wenig bewahrheitet wie die Hoffnungen,...

Deutschlands Wohneigentumsquote ist im internationalen Vergleich niedrig - nicht einmal die Hälfte aller Haushalte lebt in den eigenen vier Wänden. Gerade Haushalte mit geringeren Einkommen bilden selten Immobilienvermögen, obwohl es seit rund 60 Jahren Sparprämien gibt, die an diese Gruppen...

By lifting lockdown measures as coronavirus case numbers are rising and the vaccine rollout is proceeding slowly, the German economy is being sent on a stop-go course. Re-opening measures will probably be followed by renewed closures, at least regionally, in order to keep the spread of COVID-19...

The German economy has bottomed out, but its recovery is going to be long and arduous. Nevertheless, following the almost two-digit slump in economic output in the second quarter of 2020, recovery is likely to be accompanied by above-average rates. However, it is assumed that a second wave will...

The coronavirus recession has left deep marks on the German economy and despite economic policy action, it is likely to heal only slowly. The partial easing of the lockdown and a gradual revival of global value chains are generating positive stimuli, but massive income losses will curb demand...