Blog Post
Housing prices have been rising fast in the West of the Netherlands in the last five years. However, mortgages outstanding have remained flat, raising the question of what has driven the increase. Evidence suggests that housing supply constraints have, this time around, played a role in pushing the house prices up.
Blog Post
House prices in the Netherlands are on the rise again. But at the local level the pattern is very uneven: house prices in major cities are rising faster than in the rest of the country. Yet, macroprudential policies in Europe are based on trends in national housing price indices. With such divergence between Dutch regions, is that appropriate?
Blog Post
Austerity might be driving the eurozone into a debt-deflation cycle, as higher debt and deflation feed off each other. Earlier this year, the ECB viewed the dip in inflation as temporary. Even now, ECB officials regard deflation to be unlikely. And the safeguards that they are glacially moving towards take a eurozone-wide view rather than differentiating across countries. Yet, the analysis in this article warns that the deflation is likely to be a country-specific phenomenon, requiring counter measures at the country level.
