Kan husprisappreciering förstås genom lågräntepolitik?

The aim of this essay is to examine whether house price appreciation can be understood as a result of low-interest policies. According to the Austrian theory of the business cycle, credit expansion triggered by expansive monetary policies causes disturbances and misallocations within the economy‟s productive structure, which effectively creates periods of booms and busts. This period of boom and bust is characterized by malinvestment and over-consumption. Following, the malinvestment causes prices to appreciate in the early stages of the productive stages. If the theory is valid, credit expansion should cause house price appreciation. The determinants of house prices was examined in four countries; United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden and the United States, using an error correction model. The results show that monetary policy has a substantial effect on house price appreciation, which is in favor of the Austrian theory of the business cycle