Arthur Grimes

Is There Long-run Convergence of Regional House Prices in the UK?

This paper investigates the long-run convergence of regional house prices in the UK. Existing studies have failed to reach a consensus on whether or not regional house prices exhibit long-run convergence with each other. The application is proposed of a new test involving unit root testing of the first principal component based on regional—national house price differentials. Using mix-adjusted quarterly data for 1973—2006, it is found that the first principal component is stationary. This suggests that all UK regional house prices are driven by a single common stochastic trend. Further analysis suggests that those regions that are more distant from London exhibit the highest degrees of persistence with respect to deviations in house price differentials.

Housing and Economic Adjustment

Housing is the most important component of wealth for many New Zealanders. Its location is fixed and its value is influenced by economic and other factors specific to that location. Hence when people live in owner-occupied homes their wealth is strongly associated with their local economic conditions. Housing is also a major factor in influencing migration decisions and, hence, regional mobility. To shed light on the behaviour of the New Zealand housing market, we examine the dynamic and long run responses of house values across spatial communities and across time to economic variables that impact on the local economy. We use a specially constructed QVNZ-sourced database for house prices and house sales, and a range of explanatory variables constructed consistently across TLA and Regional Council levels.

Economic Growth and the Size and Structure of Government: Implications for New Zealand

The work of Gwartney, Holcombe and Lawson (GHL, 1998) is cited in New Zealand debate to demonstrate that a larger government share of GDP is detrimental for economic growth. Their work is reassessed here. We find a number of omissions in their analysis lead to a considerable over-statement of the effect of government size on growth. More important for growth, according to other recent work, are the structures of government revenues and expenditures. The size and structure of New Zealand government flows are examined using recent IMF data. This analysis indicates that New Zealand has a relatively small government sector. However, the structures of both government revenues and expenditures warrant attention.

Land Taxes and Revenue Needs as Communities Grow and Decline: Evidence from New Zealand

New Zealand is unusual in that nearly 60% of local services are funded from property taxes. These are a mixture of land taxes, capital value taxes, annual rental value taxes and uniform general charges. We explore the efficiency and equity of this system at both national and local levels. We find that the national property tax base is large relative to spending needs but that the variance in per capita tax bases across territorial local authorities is probably greater than is efficient or equitable. We find that land taxes are more progressive than capital value taxes. Our research also addresses local authorities’ ability to provide services as their property tax base changes as a result of external economic shocks. We consider the occurrence of and responses to “fiscal stress” in a system of local government that is heavily dependent on property taxation. We provide some examples of the wide range of actual responses by local councils faced with similar population changes. Finally, we offer some tentative conclusions and implications both for New Zealand local public finance and for the use of property taxes, and particularly land taxes, more broadly.

House Price Efficiency: Expectations, Sales, Symmetry

An efficient housing market is of critical importance for individual welfare and for a well-functioning economy. We test the efficiency of this market by estimating the factors that determine both the long-run and the dynamic paths of regional house prices. Our tests use a new quarterly regional panel data set covering the 14 regions of New Zealand from 1981 to 2002. The tests indicate that regional housing markets converge to an equilibrium consistent with consumer optimising conditions, and hence with long-run efficiency. However, some conditions required for short-run (dynamic) efficiency are violated. We find that extrapolative price expectations, based on past regional phenomena, lead to overshooting of house prices in response to new region-specific information. We also find that price dynamics are influenced by past regional house sales activity and that the dynamic adjustment process is asymmetric depending on whether house prices are above or below their long-run equilibrium.

What's the Beef with House Prices? Economic Shocks and Local Housing Markets

We examine the impact of shocks on community outcomes. The shocks that we examine are exogenous economic shocks which occur externally to the local community, and which are hypothesised to impact on the community. By testing the impact of these shocks on community developments, we enrich understanding of what causes communities to develop as they do over time. In particular, we gain a greater understanding of the impact of factors largely or wholly outside the control of local communities which lead to inequality in outcomes between communities. To focus our analysis, we concentrate on the price of houses within each community as the community outcome variable. The local price of houses summarises, in one dimension, a host of tangible and intangible components relating to the community of interest. We use a multivariate panel structure to estimate the long-run and short-run impacts of price, production and demographic variables on real house prices.

Housing Supply, Land Costs and Price Adjustment

We analyze relationships between housing supply elasticities, land costs and house price dynamics, contributing three main insights. First, higher housing supply elasticities help contain short‐run price spikes following demand shocks. Second, land price dynamics influence this relationship; supply responses are lessened and house price spikes are exacerbated as land prices increase. Third, we estimate a system of regional equations modeling housing supply using a Tobins‐q specification (incorporating construction and land costs) and show that regional price dynamics are a function of the regions supply elasticity.

Housing Supply and Price Adjustment

We analyse two inter-related features of regional housing markets: determinants of new housing supply, and the impact of supply responsiveness on price dynamics. We demonstrate that a suitably specified q-theory model (including residential land values as well as construction costs) explains intended housing starts. Few prior studies have found significant land price effects, due either to their omission or (possibly) to incorrect data definition (use of agricultural rather than residential land values). We examine the interaction of supply responsiveness and price adjustment following demand shocks, using a new panel dataset covering 53 quarters across 73 regions of New Zealand. Regions with high supply responsiveness have relatively small price spikes following demand shocks, consistent with a rational response that limits house price jumps in regions with strong supply responses.

House Prices and Rents: Socio-Economic Impacts and Prospects

We use New Zealand property data at the area unit (suburb) level to examine implied prospects for communities over time, and test whether these derived prospects have explanatory power relating to actual future outcomes. We also use the data to analyse whether disadvantaged communities face particular problems in relation to rental markets. Our results indicate that: capital gains and rental growth expectations historically have appeared reasonable in that they have not been suggestive of asset bubbles or other fad behaviour; derived capital gains and rental growth expectations have explanatory power both over actual future capital gains and actual future rental growth; and lower socio-economic areas face higher rental yields even after controlling for non-socio-economic factors than do high socio-economic areas.

Spatial Determinants of Land Prices in Auckland: Does the Metropolitan Urban Limit Have an Effect?

Land prices within monocentric cities typically decline from the centre to the urban periphery. More complex patterns are observed in polycentric and coastal cities; discrete jumps in value can occur across zoning boundaries. Information on these patterns within Auckland is important to understand: (a) the nature of Aucklands development, including the impact of infrastructure investments; and (b) the effects of regulation in causing discrete land valuation changes. One such regulation in Auckland is the metropolitan urban limit (MUL); we specifically examine whether the existence of this growth limit affects land prices. We do so in the context of a model of all Auckland land values over a twelve-year period, finding a strong zoning boundary effect on land prices.