User Costs Of Housing And The Financial Crisis In Selected Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the chronological order of impacts of the still ongoing financial crisis on the housing market in selected countries (United States, Spain, Italy and Germany). Our analysis is based on the concept of user costs of housing. We can trace back the beginning of the influence of the crisis on the Spanish economy to the year 2004. Our study shows that the American economy has been affected by the crisis around the 1^st quarter of 2005. For Germany and Italy, the impact of the crisis can be detected in 2007 and 2009, respectively.