The Unassuming Economist

“House prices have been broadly stable in real terms since 2008, and there are no signs of a real estate bubble”, says IMF’s new report on Mexico.

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The latest IMF report on Finland says:

• “Meanwhile, the housing market has cooled and standard metrics suggest that average house prices are broadly in line with fundamentals.”
• “Separately, measures in the reform program to stimulate housing construction should help ease constraints on regional labor mobility. Planned measures include easing requirements for state-subsidized housing construction, reducing restrictions on land use, and streamlining aspects of the permitting and development process.”

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A devaluation is often a way out of financial trouble for a country. But for many crisis-hit countries in the euro area, devaluation is not an option. ‘Internal’ devaluation—through wage moderation, for instance—is often discussed as an alternative solution for these countries to try to mimic the outcomes of an external devaluation. When does such internal devaluation work? My new IMF paper provides evidence on this using the euro area countries as an illustration. The main finding is that for wage moderation to work when a number of countries are undertaking it at the same time, Read the full article…

Read the latest International Jobs Report here. Read the full article…

Here is a presentation that I gave at the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) international conference on housing risks on October 29. Here is the agenda and presentations from other participants. And below is a video that covers the second day of the conference. 

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