New book provides global look at housing markets and the financial crisis

A new book edited by three Berkeley-Haas housing experts evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous effects.

“Unlike most other books on the global crisis, Global Housing Markets: Crises, Policies, and Institutions focuses on the housing sector in the context of the financial and institutional structures that shaped the experience of individual economies,” says Cynthia Kroll, executive director for staff research and a senior regional economist at the Fisher Center.

The book’s editors are Kroll, Ashok Bardhan, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics senior research associate and Professor Robert Edelstein, Maurice Mann Chair in Real Estate and co-chair, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics. Contributors to Global Housing Markets, an edited collection of articles on the experience of global housing markets during the financial crisis, include leading experts from around the world.

The book highlights the housing crisis in the United States as the core of the meltdown, and compares the U.S. experience with those of other countries. It includes chapters on housing markets in Western Europe, including Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom; Asia, including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan; as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Russia and Serbia.

The goal of the collection is to understand better how housing markets work, how different types of housing institutions and regulatory structures may have contributed to or dampened the global housing boom and bust, and whether these examples might inform housing policy in the U.S. The backdrop of the financial crisis helps bring out the differences and commonalities of markets and institutions across the world.

A new book edited by three Berkeley-Haas housing experts evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous effects. “Unlike most other books on the global crisis, Global Housing Markets: Crises, Policies, and Institutions focuses on the housing sector in the context of the financial and institutional structures that shaped the experience of individual economies,” says Cynthia Kroll, executive director for staff research and a senior regional economist at the Fisher Center.

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