Macroeconomic Variables and Real Estate in Italy and in the usa

This paper analyses the influence of the economic system on housing market price trends in the usa and Italy using a Vector Autoregression Model (var). This econometric model comprises the historic series of house prices from 1970 to 2012 and the historic series of certain macroeconomic variables, defined through the empirical findings of similar studies carried out in an international setting. Comparison between the Italian and American models exhibits a clearly different attitude of demand for real estate in the two countries. Whilst the models developed show a similar behaviour for the variable Gross Domestic Product, which has a direct influence on housing prices, they highlight an opposite attitude for the variables ?inflation? and ?stock price index?. The variable interest rate, which contributes to explaining the variability of the Italian housing prices, has no effect in the American model. For both models, the statistical significance of the functional relationships identified and the logical interpretation of the behavioural and institutional relations, arising from economic theory, confirm the reliability of the results.