Working Paper

Commodity house prices

Abstract: This paper studies how commodity price movements have affected local house prices in commodity-dependent economies, Australia and New Zealand. We build a geographically hierarchical empirical model and find that commodity prices influence local house prices directly and also indirectly through macroeconomic variables. While commodity price changes function more like ?income shocks? rather than ?cost shocks? in both Australia and New Zealand, regional heterogeneity is also observed in terms of differential dynamic responses of local house prices to energy versus non-energy commodity price movements. The results are robust to alternative approaches. Directions for future research are also discussed.

JEL Classification: F40; G10; R30;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Part of Series: Globalization Institute Working Papers

Publication Date: 2013

Number: 154

Note: Published as: Leung, Charles Ka Yui, Song Shi and Edward Tang (2013), "Commodity House Prices," Regional Science and Urban Economics 43 (6): 875-887.