A Model of Cross-Country House Prices (228.91 KB PDF)

The widespread nature of the recent international house price boom suggests that the underlying forces behind this sustained price increase may be common across countries. Many OECD countries have, over the past decade, witnessed sustained increases in living standards while housing affordability has further improved in recent years with the low interest rate environment experienced by many of these countries. In this paper we propose a theoretical model of house price determination that is driven by changes in income and interest rates. In particular, the current level of income and interest rates determine how much an individual can borrow from financial institutions to purchase housing and ultimately this is a key driver of house prices. The model is applied to a panel of 16 OECD countries from 1980 to 2005 using both single country-by-country and panel econometric approaches. Our results support the existence of a long-run relationship between actual house prices and the amount individuals can borrow and we find plausible and statistically significant adjustment, across countries, to this long run equilibrium.

Identifying and Forecasting House Price Dynamics in Ireland

While increased attention has, of late, focussed on models of house prices, few,if any, studies have examined house prices from a purely forecasting perspective. However, the need for accurate and timely forecasts of house prices has grown as the rate of house price inflation is more and more important to policy discussions such as those governing decisions on inflation. This is further underscored with the development of financial markets products based on houseprice index. In this paper, we propose that a simple univariate moving average (MA) model can provide optimal forecasts of Irish house price inflation when compared with a suite of standard forecasting and structural house price models. This result echoes similar recent findings for forecasts of US inflation rate.

US Monetary Announcements and Irish Stockmarket Volatility

We investigate the influence of foreign monetary policy decisions on the volatility of the Irish stock market. Specifically, we examine the influence of US monetary policy announcements on the ISEQ. We find evidence of the so called calm before the storm i.e. there appears to be a decline in volatility on the day prior to an FOMC meeting and a subsequent increase in volatility after the results of such meetings are made known. We also find evidence to suggest that ISEQ volatility is influenced by surprise changes in US monetary policy. Moreover, US monetary surprises appear to affect Irish stock return volatility asymmetrically. In particular, higher than expected US federal funds, tend to increase Irish stock return volatility. This paper represents an important step in addressing the issues of spillover identification between the US and the Irish stock market.

Retail Interest Rate Pass-Through - The Irish Experience

In this paper, we examine the extent to which changes in the money market interest rate are passed through to a number of retail lending rates between 1980 and 2001. In addition, we analyse the speed of adjustment of these lending rates with respect to such changes in the money market rate. Our main findings are - (1) pass-through from the money market rate to lending rates is not complete (2) the speed of adjustment varies quite considerably across alternative lending rates and (3) there has been significant structural change in the relationship between the money market rate and lending rates both in terms of pass-through and speed of adjustment during this period.

Estimating the Structural Demand for Irish Housing

After 10 years of unprecedented increases in both prices and activity levels, the Irish housing market appears to be entering a period of some uncertainty. In the early part of 2007, Irish house prices, for the first time in recent history, experienced negative growth rates - leading indicators within the housing sector would suggest that house building is already beginning to contract, with future levels expected to be somewhat below the record level of construction in 2006. The sustained increase in housing construction prompted by the rapid increase in prices has resulted in the Irish construction sector assuming a position of considerable importance within the overall economy. Arguably, any significant slowdown in housing activity could have far-reaching domestic consequences. In this paper, we use a recently developed model of the housing sector to gauge what the structural level of demand is for Irish housing.

Modelling Credit in the Irish Mortgage Market

The sharp decline in the performance of international property markets has been central to the financial distress experienced globally. The Irish housing market experienced particularly strong rates of price increases and heightened activity levels by OECD standards. One reason cited for such large price increases has been the significant degree of financial liberalisation experienced by Irish credit institutions. The culmination ofmuch of this liberalisation resulted in large increases in the availability of mortgage credit. In this paper we apply a recently developed model of mortgage credit and examine the implications for Irish house prices of changes in lending patterns. Our results suggest that post 2003, a significant amount of the increase in Irish prices was determined by innovative developments in international finance, which enabled Irish institutions, in particular, to secure alternative sources of lending funds.

Quantifying Revenue Windfalls from the Irish Housing Market

The speed and severity of the decline in the Irish fiscal position in recent years raises a number of important issues regarding the assessment of fiscal policy within the EU. From a position of relative strength, with large surpluses and low debt to GDP ratio, the Irish public finances have rapidly deteriorated, culminating in an Excessive Deficit Procedure being launched in early 2009. In hindsight, it is evident that tax revenues were on an unsustainable path in recent years due, in large part, to structural imbalances within the economy, mainly associated with the housing market. The excess growth in the latter culminated in large and transitory tax revenue windfalls, which ultimately proved unsustainable. These windfalls contributed to large general government and cyclically adjusted budget surpluses. This paper seeks to quantify the windfall gains associated with property taxes through modelling housing related tax receipts over the period 2002 to 2009. From this, estimates are derived as to the underlying or property adjusted fiscal position, which is found in various years, to have diverged greatly from actual outturns.

A Model of Mortgage Credit

The emergence and proliferation of the international financial crisis since mid-2007 has, amongst other issues, refocussed attention on the interrelationship between mortgage credit availability and house prices. A growing body of opinion is now of the view that the increase in credit availability internationally was a primary contributor to the rate of house price increases witnessed in many OECD countries over the past 10 years. House price growth in the UK over this period was to the fore of that experienced across countries, while the Anglo- Saxon system of banking was characterised by a significant degree of financial innovation yielding greater credit provision. In this paper we propose a simple intuitive model, which seeks to quantify the impact of credit market disequilibrium on UK house prices over the period 1992 - 2008.

Monetary Policy Surprises and International Bond Markets

Abstract We examine the impact and possible spillovers effects of unanticipated monetary policy on international bond returns. First, we decompose international bond returns into news regarding future returns, real interest rates and future inflation in the spirit o