We study economic growth and inflation at different levels of government and external debt. Our analysis is based on new data on forty-four countries spanning about two hundred years. The dataset incorporates over 3,700 annual observations covering a wide range of political systems, institutions, exchange rate arrangements, and historic circumstances. Our main findings are: First, the relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies. Second, emerging markets face lower thresholds for external debt (public and private)--which is usually denominated in a foreign currency. When external debt reaches 60 percent of GDP, annual growth declines by about two percent; for higher levels, growth rates are roughly cut in half. Third, there is no apparent contemporaneous link between inflation and public debt levels for the advanced countries as a group (some countries, such as the United States, have experienced higher inflation when debt/GDP is high.) The story is entirely different for emerging markets, where inflation rises sharply as debt increases.

Growth in a Time of Debt

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Growth in a time of debt

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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Independent inquiry into inequalities in health

Although there is now a large body of empirical research on neighbourhood effects, we know relatively little about the causal mechanisms responsible for relationships between neighbourhood attributes and individual outcomes. A list of 15 potential causal pathways which may lead to neighbourhood effects is given, grouped into four categories: social-interactive mechanisms, environmental mechanisms, geographical mechanisms, and institutional mechanisms. The ultimate goal of neighbourhood effects research is not only to identify which mechanisms are responsible for neighbourhood effects, but also to quantitatively ascertain their relative contributions to the outcome under investigation. A pharmacological metaphor of “dosage-response” is used to understand how the theoretical mechanisms could be causally linked to individual outcomes. This metaphor refers to questions regarding the composition and the administration of the neighbourhood dosage, and the neighbourhood dosage-response relationship. This chapter concludes that despite the ever growing literature on neighbourhood effects, there is far too little scholarship to make many claims about which causal links dominate for which outcomes for which people in which national contexts and any conclusions on the existence of such effects should be treated as provisional at best.

The Mechanism(s) of Neighbourhood Effects: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications

In Britain, house prices exhibit a distinct spatial pattern over time, rising first in a cyclical upswing in the south-east and, then, spreading out over the rest of the country. This is known as the ripple effect. Although previous studies have shown that, statistically, the ripple effect is a valid representation of the data, providing convincing economic explanations is less straightforward. Some studies have concentrated on the role of migration; others argue that the pattern reflects different regional growth rates. This paper suggests that structural differences in regional housing markets are important. A new model of house prices for the regions in Great Britain is devised and estimated in which the coefficients exhibit non-random spatial patterns. The coefficients reflect structural differences between the regions and it is shown, through simulations, that the model can generate a ripple effect irrespective of regional growth patterns.

Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect: A New Interpretation

The Time-Series Behavior of House Prices: A Transatlantic Divide?

Preface 1 Introduction 2 Issues in Housing Data Analysis 3 Selected Topics in Housing Theory: A National Perspective 4 Housing Theory: Regional Issues 5 Housing Careers and Urban Structure 6 Empirical Findings From National Housing Models 7 Explaining Regional Patterns 8 Housing, Depriviation and Urban Change 9 Selected Issues in National Housing Policy 10 Selected Issues in Regional and Urban Housing Policy 11 And Finally References Index

Modelling Spatial Housing Markets: Theory, Analysis and Policy

During the 1980s, mortgage markets have not been subject to rationing in the United Kingdom, in contrast to most of the postwar period. This change has important implications for the demand for housing and the level of house prices. In this paper, the author constructs a model of house prices that takes account of the regime switch and shows the quantitative importance of the switch. He demonstrates that any government tax or monetary policy actions are now much more likely to affect the housing market than before. Copyright 1990 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The Removal of Mortgage Market Constraints and the Implications for Econometric Modelling of UK House Prices.

Most time‐series studies of UK housing markets are carried out on national data. However, housing markets may be better characterised as a series of interconnected sub‐national markets. In this paper, we use methods taken from the spatial econometrics literature and from cointegration to explore the nature of spatial interactions in UK regional house prices and housing starts. The three central spatial issues are the extent to which markets are (a) homogeneous (b) dependent and (c) convergent, across the English regions. We find that housing starts equations are remarkably similar across regions and hence construction can be characterised as a national market. There is a high degree of spatial dependence in terms of both house prices and starts; dependence is uni‐directional in the former, but not the latter. Finally, cointegration results suggest that regional prices converge to long‐run relationships, despite major short‐term variation.

Geoffrey Meen

Papers

Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect: A New Interpretation

The Time-Series Behavior of House Prices: A Transatlantic Divide?

Modelling Spatial Housing Markets: Theory, Analysis and Policy

The Removal of Mortgage Market Constraints and the Implications for Econometric Modelling of UK House Prices.

Spatial aggregation, spatial dependence and predictability in the UK housing market