How Important are Oil and Money Shocks in Explaining Housing Market Fluctuations in an Oil-exporting Country?: Evidence from Iran

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of oil price and monetary shocks on the Iranian housing market in a Bayesian SVAR framework. The prior information for the contemporaneous identification of the SVAR model is derived from standard economic theory. To deal with uncertainty in the identification schemes, I calculate posterior model probabilities for the SVAR model identified by a different set of over-identification restrictions. In order to draw accurate inferences regarding the effectiveness of the shocks in an over-identified Bayesian SVAR, a Bayesian Monte Carlo integration method is applied. The findings indicate that oil price shocks explain a substantial portion of housing market fluctuations. Housing prices increase in response to a positive credit shock, but only with a noticeably smaller magnitude when compared with the response to a positive oil price shock.Housing market fluctuations, Oil price shocks, Credit shocks, Bayesian Structural VAR, Bayesian model averaging (BMA), Bayesian Monte Carlo integration method