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No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012

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  • Katharina Knoll
  • Moritz Schularick
  • Thomas Steger

Abstract

How have house prices evolved over the long-run? This paper presents annual house prices for 14 advanced economies since 1870. Based on extensive data collection, we show that real house prices stayed constant from the 19th to the mid-20th century, but rose strongly during the second half of the 20th century. Land prices, not replacement costs, are the key to understanding the trajectory of house prices. Rising land prices explain about 80 percent of the global house price boom that has taken place since World War II. Higher land values have pushed up wealth-to-income ratios in recent decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharina Knoll & Moritz Schularick & Thomas Steger, 2014. "No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012," CESifo Working Paper Series 5006, CESifo Group Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5006
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    house prices; land prices; transportation costs; neoclassical theory;

    JEL classification:

    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

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