The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• Q3 2017: Continued strong house price rises in Europe, Canada and parts of Asia, but globally housing markets are slowing sharply – Global Property Guide
• High house prices pose persistent risks in countries with housing markets slow to react to homeownership costs – Moody’s
• Real and financial cycles in EU countries: Stylised facts and modelling implications – European Central Bank
• Housing finance – International Growth Centre
• What if Real Estate Investors Are Looking at the Housing Market All Wrong? – Bloomberg

On the US:

• Pent-Up Demand and Continuing Price Increases: The Outlook for Housing in 2018 – Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas
• The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco – NBER
• The Housing Market Crash and Wealth Inequality in the U.S. – NBER
• Are Lemons Sold First? Dynamic Signaling in the Mortgage Market – NBER
• Portfolio Choice with House Value Misperception – Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
• The Impact of Interest Rates on House Prices and Housing Demand: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment – American Enterprise Institute
• Housing Voucher Policy Designed to Expand Opportunity Targets Areas That Need It – Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Rent Control: Econ 101 Applies – Cato Institute

On other countries:

• [Brazil] No more roller coaster ride for Brazilian housing market? – Global Property Guide
• [Cambodia] Cambodia Finds New Target for Real Estate: Chinese Investors – New York Times
• [China] A Reexamination of Housing Price and Household Consumption in China: The Dual Role of Housing Consumption and Housing Investment – The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics
• [Germany] German house prices are accelerating! – Global Property Guide
• [Hungary] Property boom in Hungary continues in 2017 – Global Property Guide
• [India] Mumbai Home Prices Post First Drop in Decade Amid Modi Crackdown – Bloomberg
• [Ireland] Irish house prices will outpace all Europe over next 2 years – Global Property Guide
• [Italy] Italy an outlier as property prices continue to fall, data show – Financial Times
• [Montenegro] Montenegro’s housing market recovering, amidst booming tourism – Global Property Guide
• [Peru] House prices in Lima plunged in Q1 2017 – Global Property Guide
• [Thailand] Thailand’s housing market losing steam – Global Property Guide
• [Uruguay] House prices rising in Montevideo – Global Property Guide

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu

From a blog by Duncan Green: “Stefan gave us a tour of the ‘Big Ideals, Big Egos and Big Thinkers in development’. Here they are, points for recognizing them.” Continue reading the wonderful summary here.

The Council on Economic Policies, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization are organizing a workshop on 25-26 April, 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland, on policy relevant aspects of the links between trade in services and inclusive growth. Papers presented in the workshop will be considered for an expedited review process for a Review of International Economics special issue to be published in 2019.

Topics

We particularly encourage the submission of unpublished empirical work that uses new datasets or exploits policy experiments in a novel and informative way. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• What is the effect of services trade on inclusive growth and structural transformation? Is trade in services a promising development strategy for developing economies?
• How does services trade affect employment, income and gender inequality, quality of and access to service delivery, and innovation?
• What are key determinants of and barriers to services trade? To what extent have trade agreements reduced them?
• What policies are needed to increase services trade opportunities for inclusive growth?

Program

The workshop will start with a welcome dinner on April 24. April 25 will be devoted to paper presentations as well as a policy debate with trade negotiators and other practitioners in the evening. Presentations will continue in the morning of April 26, followed by an exploration of new directions for research in the afternoon. The workshop will take place at the WTO Secretariat.

Submissions

Papers should be submitted by February 15, 2018 to trade@cepweb.org. Successful submissions will be notified by beginning of March 2018.

Program Committee

• Peter Egger, ETH Zurich
• Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University
• Bernard Hoekman, European University Institute
• Bob Koopman, World Trade Organization
• Aaditya Mattoo, World Bank
• Margaret McMillan, Tufts University
• Chris Papageorgiou, International Monetary Fund
• Johannes Schwarzer, Council on Economic Policies

A new IMF report says that: “By 2100, climate change could impact more than 12 percent of the Vietnamese population and reduce growth by 10 percent. The Vietnamese government considers the response to climate change a vital issue and has implemented environmental policies to better cope with these risks.”

“But the country—which has relied heavily on fossil fuels and overexploitation of natural resources—needs to further adapt its economy toward a more sustainable and ecofriendly growth model.”

“Policies that can better prepare Vietnam for the future impact of climate change should focus on:

• Lowering the intensity of fossil fuels in Vietnam’s GDP: raising the contribution of renewable energy would help to break the link between greenhouse gas emissions and output.
• Providing stronger incentives for households, firms, and government to pursue green growth: taxation of fossil fuels that fully prices environmental and health externalities would nudge energy demand toward renewables and generate revenue to finance adaptation and mitigation plans.
• Investing in climate resilient infrastructure would help households and firms cope with storms. The expected cost of natural disasters could be usefully included in public debt sustainability analyses.
• Promoting research and development and other innovation policies can provide further incentives to investment in existing clean energy sources and improvements in clean technologies.
• Shifting to autonomous, electric, shared vehicles, as already planned in Singapore, would help reduce congestion and pollution in cities. Improved government capacity to coordinate technological change and promote innovation and green growth would be key.”

From a new IMF working paper by Jonathan Ostry, Andrew Berg, and Siddharth Kothari:

“Do structural reforms that aim to boost potential output also change the distribution of income? We shed light on this question by looking at the broad patterns in the cross-country data covering advanced, emerging-market, and low-income countries. Our main finding is that there is indeed evidence of a growth-equity tradeoff for some important reforms. Financial and capital account liberalization seem to increase both growth and inequality, as do some measures of liberalization of current account transactions. Reforms aimed at strengthening the impartiality of and adherence to the legal system seem to entail no growth-equity tradeoff—such reforms are good for growth and do not worsen inequality. The results for our index of network reforms as well as our measure of the decentralization of collective labor bargaining are the weakest and least robust, potentially due to data limitations. We also ask: If some structural reforms worsen inequality, to what degree does this offset the growth gains from the reforms themselves? While higher inequality does dampen the growth benefits, the net effect on growth remains positive for most reform indicators.”