Survey_GB_2001

Abstract

The amplitude of house price fluctuations has differed markedly across countries and over time within countries (Figure 2). Measured as the standard deviation of the annual growth rate of real house prices, fluctuations over the 1970-1999 period have been particularly strong in Italy, Spain, Japan, Finland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. By contrast, the fluctuations have been comparatively small in the France and, especially, the United States. In several countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, Sweden) the 1980s cycle was more pronounced than the 1970s and 1990s cycles. However, the variability in growth rates fell in the 1980s in Japan and a few European countries (Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom). In practically all the countries under review, the standard deviation of the growth rate of real house prices was lower in the 1990s than for the 1970-1999 period as a whole.