Cyclical relationships between GDP and housing market in France: Facts and factors at play

Abstract: In this paper we focus on cycles and trends of some macroeconomic and housing market variables representative of the French economy. In a first part, we empirically show that cycles in the housing sector, measured by housing prices, housing starts, building permits, sales or residential investment, are strongly correlated to GDP cycles with a lead lying between of one and four quarters, suggesting thus that a monitoring of housing fluctuations could bring useful information for macroeconomic forecasting. Interestingly, this result is robust to the various considered approaches. Moreover, it seems that the housing sector long-term trend possesses its own dynamics, quite different from the global French economic activity. Thus, in a second part, we review various structural factors that could drive housing market developments in France in the future.

Keywords: Economic cycles; Housing market; France. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E20 E32 R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bfr:banfra:268

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