Furthermore, demand for euro area exports should benefit from improvements in price competitiveness.
Using a once-popular term, housing is a merit good it can be produced by the private sector, but its benefit to society is deemed by many great enough that governments strive to make it widely available.3 As such, over the course of time, governments have supported homebuilding and in most countries have also encouraged homeownership.4 Governments are involved in housing in a myriad of ways.