Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain

Joan Rosés
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Juan Carmona () and Markus Lampe

IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola

Abstract: During the decades previous to the Civil War, Spain experienced a rapid process of urbanization, which was accompanied by the demographic transition and sizeable rural-urban migrations. This article investigates how urban housing markets reacted to these far-reaching changes that increased demand for dwellings. To this end, we employ a new hedonic index of real housing prices and construct a cross-regional panel dataset of rents and housing price fundamentals. This new evidence indicates that rents were not a significant financial burden on low-income families and, hence, housing was affordable for working classes. Also, we show that families' access to new homes was facilitated by a sizable growth of housing supply. Substantial investments in urban infrastructure and the institutional framework enabled the construction of new homes at affordable prices. Our results suggest that housing problems were not pervasive during the urban transition as the literature often seems to claim.

Keywords: Demand; and; supply; of; housing; Regulation; in; housing; markets; Urban; growth; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N93 N94 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger, nep-his, nep-reg and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain (2017)
Working Paper: Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain (2017)
Working Paper: Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp14-05

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