Anatomy of the Beginning of the Housing Boom Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas

We provide novel estimates of the location, timing, magnitude, and determinants of the start of the last U.S. housing boom. The last housing cycle cannot be interpreted as a single, national event, as different markets began to boom across a decade-long period, some of them multiple times. A fundamental factor, income of prospective buyers, can account for half of the initial jump in price growth, while expansion of purchases by underrepresented minorities cannot. The start of the boom also was financed conventionally, not by subprime mortgages. The latter's share did rise sharply over time, but only after a multi-year lag.

U.S. Housing as a Global Safe Asset: Evidence from China Shocks

This paper demonstrates that the measured stock of China's holding of U.S. assets could be much higher than indicated by the U.S. net international investment position data due to unrecorded historical Chinese in ows into an increasingly popular global safe haven asset: U.S. residential real estate. We first use aggregate capital ows data to show that the increase in unrecorded capital in ows in the U.S. balance of payment accounts over the past decade is mainly linked to in ows from China into U.S. housing markets. Then, using a unique web traffic dataset that provides a direct measure of Chinese demand for U.S. housing at the zip code level, we estimate via a difference-in-difference matching framework that house prices in major U.S. cities that are highly exposed to demand from China have on average grown 7 percentage points faster than similar neighborhoods with low exposure over the period 2010-2016. These average excess price growth gaps co-move closely with macro-level measures of U.S. capital in ows from China, and tend to widen following periods of economic stress in China, suggesting that Chinese households view U.S. housing as a safe haven asset.

Has the Fed Responded to House and Stock Prices? A Time-Varying Analysis

We investigate whether the Federal Reserve has responded systematically to house and stock prices and whether this response has changed over time using a Bayesian structural VAR model with time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility. To recover the systematic component of monetary policy, we interpret the interest rate equation in the VAR as an extended monetary policy rule responding to ination, the output gap, house prices and stock prices. Our results indicate that the systematic component of monetary policy in the U.S. responded to real stock price growth significantly but episodically, mainly around recessions and periods of financial instability, and took real house price growth into account only in the years preceding the Great Recession. Around half of the estimated response captures the predictor role of asset prices for future ination and real economic activity, while the remaining component reects a direct response to stock prices and house prices.

Boon or Burden? Evaluating the Competing Effects of House-Price Shocks on Regional Entrepreneurship

This paper examines the impact of changes in housing affordability on regional entrepreneurship. Two-way fixed-effects estimates suggest an increase in the level of house prices in a commuting zone results in a decline in establishment openings as a share of existing establishments—consistent with a crowding-out effect. In contrast, an increase in the growth rate of house prices results in a small (although not always statistically significant) increase in establishment openings—consistent with a positive wealth effect from capital gains. To address endogeneity concerns, the authors adopt two alternative instruments for commuting zone house-price growth: a measure of local real estate lending and a geography-based measure of the elasticity of local housing supply. They extend the analysis using restricted-use establishment-level microdata from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the state of Colorado. Results from the QCEW data are consistent with those from the commuting zone sample.

ESTIMATES OF SOCIAL MINIMUM BASKETS FOR THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2021

The article presents values of social minimum baskets estimated for conditions prevailing in the second quarter of 2021. The presented estimates take into account the needs as foreseen in the model under normal conditions of social life – new circumstances (Covid-19) have not been considered. There is a lack of research on changes in household consumption in 2021. If there will be a need to change assumptions in the model, the values of social minimum can be recalculated in the future. External conditions for households in the second quarter of 2021 were reasonably favourable (including a falling unemployment rate to 5.9% in June). In the period under review, total consumer price growth was 1.9%. The values of the social minimum have increased from 2.3% (a single person of retirement age) to 3.2% (a family with a child aged 13 to 15). The major factor in the increasing values of the social minimum was rising food prices (from 5.8% for parents with a younger child to 6.1% for a family with an older child). This increase was almost three times higher than the price growth rate for food (2.2%). On the other hand, the dynamics of the costs of housing and energy carriers was comparable to the value of the CPI for this group.

вast crops in russia and abroad: the state, problems and prospects of their processing

Представлен анализ состояния, проблем и перспектив производства и переработки лубяных культур в России и зарубежных странах, используя многолетние собственные и другие исследования. Показано, что: с 2010 года площади посева лубяных культур в РФ увеличивались, но при этом, она, входя в тройку лидеров по производству льняных тканей, пока отстает от зарубежных стран по темпам роста первичной и глубокой переработки, по-прежнему остается проблема покупки нового технологического оборудования силами льнопенькозаводов. Основными производителями лубяных культур являются СНГ, Аргентина, Канада, США, Индия, Чехия, Германия, Франция, Бельгия, Голландия, Казахстан и другие. Определены в РФ: основные регионы возделывания лубяных культур; динамика роста цен на технологическое оборудование и волокно первичной переработки; состав и цены различных линий их первичной переработки; мировые производители льняных тканей. Сформулированы причины, тормозящие эффективность первичной и глубокой переработки лубяных культур в РФ. The analysis of the state, problems and prospects of production and processing of bast crops in Russia and foreign countries is presented, using many years of own and other research. It is shown that: since 2010, the area of sowing of bast crops in the Russian Federation has increased, but at the same time, it is one of the three leaders in the production of linen fabrics, while it lags behind foreign countries in terms of growth rates of primary and deep processing, there is still a problem of buying new technological equipment by 31 flax mills. The main producers of bast crops are the CIS, Argentina, Canada, the USA, India, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and others. The following are defined in the Russian Federation: the main regions of cultivation of bast crops; the dynamics of price growth for technological equipment and fiber of primary processing; the composition and prices of various lines of their primary processing; world manufacturers of linen fabrics. The reasons hindering the effectiveness of primary and deep processing of bast crops in the Russian Federation are formulated.

Real Estate Markets and Lending: Does Local Growth Fuel Risk?

Real estate price growth affects credit risk for several reasons: it provides input for economic forecasts as it’s closely tied to economic growth; when used as collateral by banks, rising real estate prices may decrease both expected and actual losses; and banks may become less risk averse in lending practices in the presence of rising property prices. Therefore, we analyze these effects on loan portfolios’ estimated and realized risks on a local level. Using data of 390 German savings banks, however, we find that real estate prices have little or no impact on savings banks’ credit portfolio risk or risk precautions.

THE IMPACT OF OIL PRICES ON INVESTMENT IN CROATIA

If we look at economic growth as a function of labour and capital then, aside from the labour force, investment is a key determinant of capital accumulation and, accordingly, a prerequisite for economic growth and prosperity. During the analysed period (1996:Q1-2015:Q4) investment in Croatia demonstrated pro-cyclically behaviour but showed a higher level of fluctuation then personal consumption or GDP. The aim of the paper is to examine the influence of oil prices on investment during the analysed period using Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis and to determine the nature of their relationship by permuting four different oil price indicators. The results indicate that investment initially react positively to the growth of oil prices after which their reaction to oil price growth becomes negative (and more pronounced than the initial positive reaction). Contribution of oil price changes to investment fluctuations were also found. Keywords: investment, oil prices

Oil Price and Macroeconomic Fundamentals in African Net Oil-Exporting Countries: Evidence from Toda–Yamamoto and Homogeneous Causality Tests

Despite the wealth of literature on the oil price growth examinations, there is a shortage of research on the causality between oil prices and various macroeconomic fundamentals with regard to the group of net oil-exporting countries in Africa. This study examines the causality between oil price volatility and macroeconomic fundamentals in net oil-exporting countries in Africa using the Toda–Yamamoto and homogeneous causality techniques to gauge the nexus in the selected countries from 1995 to 2019. Our findings from the panel causality test suggest that oil price volatility significantly Granger causes the economic growth of the selected net oil-exporting countries in Africa. However, a mixed outcome was observed for the cross-sectional analyses using the Toda–Yamamoto causality test. Hence, the study offers the need for a policy framework that would drive the output growth as oil price changes continue to threaten macroeconomic variables.

Have pandemic-induced declines in home listings fueled house price growth?

New homes listed for sale fell sharply at the beginning of the pandemic. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fear of COVID made homeowners reluctant to list their homes, driving down new listings. Figure 1 shows that from March to April 2020, as COVID lockdowns went into effect, new listings declined by more than one-third relative to previous years and did not return to normal levels until July 2020.