Working Paper Series no. 172: Housing loans' development in France: an analysis in terms of cycles. (in French)

Abstract

This article puts forward a framework based primarily on probabilistic tools to analyse the nature of housing loan cycles in France. The continued high growth rate of housing loans may indeed raise concerns as to the duration and determinants of the cycle which currently prevails. The results obtained suggest that the current cycle is actually exceptional in many respects. One the one hand, it is the longest housing loans cycle observed over the last thirty years, while its occurrence appears to be structurally decoupled with several indicators of the real economy. On the other hand, this cycle may also be related to the existence of an excess supply regime, which could prove an important explanatory factor of a decoupling with the real economy.

Rafal Kierzenkowski and Vichett Oung
July 2007

Classification JEL : E32, E44, E51.

Keywords : credit cycle, band-pass filters, Markov Switching, disequilibrium.