Housing Market Stability and Affordability in Asia-Pacific


Book Description

The paper intends to highlight challenges in Asian housing markets linked to fast price rises especially in the advanced economies since COVID, and more broadly including many EMs in the period leading up to COVID. It aims to draw policy lessons on how to manage stability aspects through macroprudential and other policies and how to support affordability through structural policies and targeted government support.




Stabilizing China’s Housing Market


Book Description

The sharp rise of house prices in China’s Tier-1 cities has fostered a great deal of commentary about the possibility of bubbles forming there. However, China’s unique housing market characteristics make it difficult to assess the macroeconomic severity of bursting bubbles, even if they exist. These include the setting of land supply and prices by the government, among many others. The presence of overbuilt “ghost cities” greatly complicates the ability of traditional macroeconomic policies to address these concerns. This paper looks at proposals to shore up the mortgage underwriting and legal infrastructure to help China withstand the impact of falling prices, should this occur.




The Pricing-Out Phenomenon in the U.S. Housing Market


Book Description

The COVID-19 pandemic further extended the multi-year housing boom in advanced economies and emerging markets alike against massive monetary easing during the pandemic. In this paper, we analyze the pricing-out phenomenon in the U.S. residential housing market due to higher house prices associated with monetary easing. We first set up a stylized general equilibrium model and show that although monetary easing decreases the mortgage payment burden, it would raise house prices, lower housing affordability for first-time homebuyers, and increase housing wealth inequality between first-time and repeat homebuyers. We then use the U.S. household-level data to quantify the effect of the house price change on housing affordability relative to that of the interest rate change. We find evidence of the pricing-out effect for all homebuyers; moreover, we find that the pricing-out effect is stronger for first-time homebuyers than for repeat homebuyers. The paper highlights the importance of accounting for general equilibrium effects and distributional implications of monetary policy while assessing housing affordability. It also calls for complementing monetary easing with well-targeted policy measures that can boost housing affordability, particularly for first-time and lower-income households. Such measures are also needed during aggressive monetary tightening, given that the fall in house prices may be insufficient or too slow to fully offset the immediate adverse impact of higher rates on housing affordability.




World Economic Outlook, April 2024


Book Description

The latest World Economic Outlook reports economic activity was surprisingly resilient through the global disinflation of 2022–23, despite significant central bank interest rate hikes to restore price stability. Risks to the global outlook are now broadly balanced compared with last year. Monetary policy should ensure that inflation touches down smoothly, while a renewed focus on fiscal consolidation is needed to rebuild room for budgetary maneuver and to ensure debt sustainability. Structural reforms are crucial to revive medium-term growth prospects amid constrained policy space.




Ireland


Book Description

Ireland: Selected Issues




Australia


Book Description

This 2017 Article IV Consultation highlights that Australia has enjoyed a comparatively robust economic performance while adjusting to the end of the commodity price and mining investment booms of the 2000s. The recovery from these shocks has advanced further in 2017. Aggregate demand has been led by strong public investment growth amid a boost in infrastructure spending and private business investment has picked up, but private consumption growth has remained subdued. Employment growth has strengthened markedly over the year, although the economy is not yet back at full employment. Wage growth is weak and inflation is below its target range. The macroeconomic policy stance has become more supportive with the infrastructure investment boost.







The Weekend That Changed Wall Street


Book Description

America's most famous business reporter gives her unique perspective on the white-knuckle weekend that brought the financial world to its knees. During a single historic weekend (September 12-14, 2008) the fate of Lehman Brothers was sealed, Merrill Lynch barely survived, and AIG became a ward of the federal government. Top CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo spent the entire weekend taking frantic phone calls from the most powerful players on Wall Street and in Washington, as they toiled to keep the economy from complete collapse. Those CEOs and dozens of other sources gave Bartiromo behind-the-scenes details unavailable to other members of the media, of the crisis and its aftermath. Now she draws on her high-level network to provide an eyewitness account of the biggest events of the financial crisis including at length interviews with former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, among many others. Writing with both authority and dramatic flair, Bartiromo weaves a thrilling narrative that will make news. She also tackles the big questions: how did an unmatched period of market euphoria and growth turn sour, catapulting the economy into a dangerous slide? And in the long run, how will the near-catastrophe really change Wall Street?




Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and the Pacific, October 2022


Book Description

After the strong rebound of 6.5 percent posted in 2021, growth in Asia and Pacific is expected to moderate to 4.0 percent in 2022 amid an uncertain global environment and rise to 4.3 percent in 2023. Inflation has risen above most central bank targets, but is expected to peak in late 2022. As the effects of the pandemic wane, the region faces new headwinds from global financial tightening and an expected slowdown of external demand. While Asia remains a relative bright spot in an increasingly lethargic global economy, it is expected to expand at a rate that is well below the average rate of 51⁄2 percent seen over the preceding two decades. Policy support is gradually being withdrawn as inflation rises and idle capacity is utilized, but monetary policy should be ready to tighten faster if the rise in core inflation turns out to be more persistent. The region’s rising public debt lev¬els call for continued fiscal consolidation, so interven¬tions to mitigate global food and energy shocks should be well targeted, temporary, and budget neutral. Structural reforms are needed to boost growth and mitigate the scarring that is expected from the pan¬demic, especially making up for lost schooling through investments in education and training, promoting diversification, addressing the debt overhang from the pandemic, and harnessing digitalization. Strong multilateralism—including through international organizations, the Group of Twenty and regional processes—will be needed to mitigate geo-economic fragmentation and deliver much needed progress on climate change commitments.




Global Housing Markets


Book Description

A global look at the reasons behind the recent economic collapse, and the responses to it The speculative bubble in the housing market began to burst in the United States in 2007, and has been followed by ruptures in virtually every asset market in almost every country in the world. Each country proposed a range of policy initiatives to deal with its crisis. Policies that focused upon stabilizing the housing market formed the cornerstone of many of these proposals. This internationally focused book evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous affects. Unlike other books on the global crisis, this guide deals with the housing sector in addition to the financial sector of individual economies. Countries in many parts of the world were players in either the financial bubble or the housing bubble, or both, but the degree of impact, outcome, and responses varied widely. This is an appropriate time to pull together the lessons from these various experiences. Reveals the housing crisis in the United States as the core of the meltdown Describes the evolution of housing markets and policies in the run-up to the crisis, their impacts, and the responses in European and Asian countries Compares experiences and linkages across countries and points to policy implications and research lessons drawn from these experiences Filled with the insights of well-known contributors with strong contacts in practice and academia, this timely guide discusses the history and evolution of the recent crisis as local to each contributor's part of the world, and examines its distinctive and common features with that of the U.S., the trajectory of its evolution, and the similarities and differences in policy response.