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IW-Reports

Research papers from the German Economic Institute

European office markets, user costs and speculative bubbles
  • Michael Voigtländer / Florian Schuster ·
  • IW-Report No. 31 ·
  • 15 August 2019

European office markets, user costs and speculative bubbles

Over the last years, prices for European office space have reached new peaks. This naturally provokes discussion about a possible overheating in the market. One approach to assess price development of real estate markets is the so-called „user cost approach”.

Homesharing in the German federal state of North Rhine - Westphalia
  • Vera Demary ·
  • IW-Report No. 3 ·
  • 14 January 2019

Homesharing in the German federal state of North Rhine - Westphalia

A professional, continuous short term letting of accommodation via home sharing platforms like Airbnb can lead to a reduction of housing space and therefore intensify housing shortages.

Reasons for the Declining Real Interest Rates
  • Markus Demary / Michael Voigtländer ·
  • IW-Report No. 47 ·
  • 13 December 2018

Reasons for the Declining Real Interest Rates

The low nominal interest rate environment is a hotly debated phenomenon among politicians, financial market participants and households. Savers fear the erosion of their retirement savings, while financial supervisors warn of the stability risks caused by declining bank profitability and by the declining profitability of life insurers. Moreover, financial supervisors fear an increase in household debt triggered by a high demand for cheap loans.

On the relevance and perspectives of commercial construction in the EU
  • Pekka Sagner / Michael Voigtländer ·
  • IW-Report No. 32 ·
  • 5 September 2018

On the relevance and perspectives of commercial construction in the EU

In this paper, we present the current state of European investments in construction. Furthermore we showed how construction investments fared in comparison to overall GFCF, noting that construction investments are still below their peak levels in 2007 for both investments in dwellings and the construction of non-residential buildings and structures.

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