We study if and how the structure of EU housing markets, particularly the role of structural breaks and the institutional characteristics of national residential mortgage markets across the EU countries affects the EU housing prices before the financial crisis of 2008. We document three main features: first, the institutional characteristics of residential mortgage markets differ markedly across EU countries; second, and according to a wide range of indicators, the increase of housing prices is significantly stronger in those countries where the credit policy characteristics are less conservative; third, for the majority of EU countries, we find evidence of structural breaks in EU housing markets that often coincide with a housing market policy change.

我们研究了欧盟住房市场的结构是否以及如何影响，尤其是结构性断裂的作用以及整个欧盟国家的全国住宅抵押贷款市场的制度特征如何影响2008年金融危机之前的欧盟住房价格。我们记录了以下三个主要特征： ，住宅抵押贷款市场的制度特征在欧盟国家之间存在显着差异；其次，根据广泛的指标，在​​那些信贷政策特征较不保守的国家，房价上涨明显更大；第三，对于大多数欧盟国家，我们发现有证据表明欧盟住房市场出现结构性断裂，这通常与住房市场政策变化同时发生。