Regional determinants of housing prices in the Czech Republic

This paper examines the behaviour of housing prices and identifies their determinants across Czech regions from 2000 to 2017. The effect of a wide range of variables on apartment prices is analyzed on quarterly data for all regions of the Czech Republic using panel dynamic OLS estimator. Furthermore, an error correction model is employed to verify the existence of long-term equilibrium of apartment prices and the speed of price adjustment in the short run. The regression reveales that apartment prices are driven mainly by wages, unemployment rate and building plot prices. In order to check robustness of selected model, several regions with unique characteristics are excluded from the sample and analyzed separately. Our results show that building plot prices have an unexpected negative effect in low-income regions and labour force factors are less important in Prague, caused by a number of unique features of the capital city.