House Prices, Mortgage Debt Dynamics and Economic Fluctuations in France: A Semi-Structural Approach

Abstract

We develop a model of house prices and household indebtedness and include it in the Banque de France's semi-structural macroeconomic model in order to analyse the implications of mortgage debt dynamics on economic fluctuations and financial stability in France. Our results show that accounting for household financial vulnerability in the distribution of loans is key to prevent large credit and house price fluctuations from reinforcing each other in the long term. Moreover, our model shows that measures constraining the indebtedness of households (regarding the maturity of loans or borrower-based caps) helps reducing short- to medium-term financial instability dynamics.