Housing prices respond to interest rates, and in turn affect household consumption through wealth and collateral effects. And the housing construction industry is one of the most interest-sensitive. The theme of this conference is ‘Housing and Inequality’. I’d like to talk about two aspects of that. First, there’s the inequality – or rather, diversity – between countries.
Second, there’s the inequality represented by the distribution of housing outcomes across residents of a particular country. Institutions Matter: The Cross-country Dimension On the first, we can summarise by saying that institutions matter. Country-specific features are very important to housing outcomes, including the outcomes most relevant to monetary and financial stability policymakers.