Economic and Monetary Union and Its Housing Consequences

The PhD study that this book presents started in 1997, two years before the introduction of the Euro. Many commentators tried to predict how a single monetary policy would impact on the EU housing and mortgage markets. The research explores possible consequences of the adoption of a single monetary policy for five European housing markets: Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and Spain. It brings together comparative housing research and research on optimum currency areas and addresses two issues. Firstly, it assesses whether house price cycles will become synchronised following the convergence in nominal interest rates. Secondly, it examines the implications of low inflation in the Euro-zone for the stability of house prices in the member-states. Accomplished in 2004, this research helps to understand many of the current changes in the EU housing and mortgage markets. The book should be useful to all those interested in housing markets and mortgage finance. It contains a wealth of information about the developments in housing policy, taxation, housing finance, spatial planning and the construction industry in the countries representing the diversity of the EU since the 1970s.