The Effect of House Prices on Growth

The differences in growth rates between EU countries during the period 1995-2005 can be attributed in part to the responsiveness of consumption and residential building to house price and interest rate changes. Rising real house prices in the UK, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries and Spain accelerated residential building and stimulated private consumption through wealth effects. Using cross-country analysis, an increase of real house prices by 1 percent raised GDP growth by 0.15 percentage point.