Housing Markets, Wealth and the Business Cycle

Pietro Catte, Nathalie Girouard (), Robert Price and Christophe André

No 394, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: The paper examines the linkages between housing markets and the business cycle in OECD countries, focusing on how differences in the degree of resilience to economic shocks can be affected by the structural characteristics of housing and mortgage markets. The paper focuses specifically on: the transmission channel from housing wealth to consumption and on the factors behind house price variability, which help to determine whether the housing sector plays a stabilising role or not. Estimates of the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth are presented for ten OECD countries, where it is found that the strongest impact on consumption is in countries that have large, efficient and responsive mortgage markets. Particularly important in this regard is the degree of mortgage market “completeness” -- i.e. the extent to which the market is able to offer a variety of products and to serve a broad range of potential borrowers -- in particular, the extent to which they provide ... Cette étude examine les liens entre les marchés immobiliers et le cycle économique dans les pays de l’OCDE, se concentrant sur le rôle des spécificités nationales des marchés immobiliers et hypothécaires sur l’inégale résilience face aux chocs économiques. Cette étude s’intéresse particulièrement au canal de transmission de la richesse immobilière à la consommation et aux facteurs expliquant la variabilité des prix des logements ; ces deux aspects contribuent à déterminer si le secteur immobilier joue un rôle stabilisateur ou non. Des estimations de la propension marginale à consommer la richesse immobilière sont présentées pour dix pays de l’OCDE. Ces estimations indiquent que les effets les plus important sur la consummation apparaissent dans les pays ayant des marchés hypothécaires de grande taille, efficients et réactifs. Le niveau de « complétude » du marché hypothécaire -- la mesure dans laquelle le marché peut offrir une variété de produits et répondre à un large éventail ...

Keywords: business cycles; consommation; consumption; cycle économique; house prices; marchés hypothécaires; mortgage markets; prix des logements; richesse; wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 E21 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-06-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (113)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:394-en

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