Housing Bubbles, Economic Growth, and Institutions
Joshua Aizenman,
Yothin Jinjarak and
Huanhuan Zheng
Open Economies Review, 2019, vol. 30, issue 4, No 2, 655-674
Abstract:
Abstract Rising housing prices are accompanied by higher household consumption and firm investment that boost economic growth. However, excessive house price appreciations may distort capital allocation efficiency, for example by crowding out investments in productive sectors, which reduce long-term economic growth. Moreover, house price bubbles are typically unsustainable. Once a housing bubble bursts, credit conditions will tighten due to falling collateral value, leading to a fall in household consumption and employment that cause an economic downturn. Meanwhile, the correction of housing prices may improve investment efficiency and trigger structural reform that subsequently enhances economic growth. We look into the trade-off between the aforementioned effects at different stages of housing cycles and economic growth. Using a quarterly dataset that covers cross-country house prices over four decades, we find that house price appreciations are positively associated with economic growth, while the relationship between house price depreciations and economic growth is highly non-linear, depending on country-specific characteristics. In the absence of confounding crisis in the financial sector, short-lived large house price depreciations, rather than prolonged and modest ones, are positively associated with economic growth. The association between house price depreciations and economic growth is subject to legal systems, mortgage insurance, and personal bankruptcy law.
Keywords: House prices; Economic growth; Banking crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11079-019-09535-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:openec:v:30:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s11079-019-09535-9
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/11079/PS2
DOI: 10.1007/s11079-019-09535-9
Access Statistics for this article
Open Economies Review is currently edited by G.S. Tavlas
More articles in Open Economies Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().