The Unassuming Economist

The February issue includes:

1. IMF’s latest assessment on Canada’s housing market and a new working paper on differences in house price behavior across advanced and emerging markets.
2. Experts views on how diverging monetary policy rates and currency volatility will affect housing markets.
3. Was fraud a cause of the U.S. housing crash of seven years ago? Yes and no, says new research.
4. Other views and analysis on housing markets:
• Cross-country work: two reports from a World Economic Forum initiative on detecting when and why housing bubbles emerge and how consequences can be mitigated.

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House prices are are still declining in Slovenia, according to the latest IMF economic report on Slovenia.

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This newsletter aims to present a snapshot of the month’s news and research on global housing markets. If you have suggestions on new material that could be included, you can send it by clicking here. The January 2015 issue includes:

• IMF issues report on housing markets in Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain

• The impact of decline in oil prices on housing

• Housing affordability emerging as an issue

• News and research for the following countries: Brazil,

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In a new paper, Alessandro Rebucci (Johns Hopkins University) and his co-authors have assembled a database that expands the availability of historical house price data for emerging markets.The authors used this database to study the impact of increased global liquidity—an increase in the international supply of credit—on house prices. The paper finds that an increase in global liquidity by 1 percent of world GDP raises house prices in emerging markets by 3 percent, over three times the impact in advanced economies. Read the full article…

“Housing markets strong with signs of overvaluation to differing degrees. After a brief pause, Canada’s housing market rebounded in 2014, fueled by low and declining interest rates (…). House prices have been rising at 5–6 percent (y/y) nominally through most of 2014 (almost twice the average pace in 2013). Most of the appreciation has been driven by Calgary’s housing market and single-family homes in Toronto and Vancouver (…). Since 2001, house prices have risen significantly—similar to other Commonwealth commodity-exporter countries— though Canada’s cycle seems to be lagging and relatively smoother. Read the full article…