In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 115 indicators to predict the housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. Above all, we are interested in whether the local business confidence indicators can allow substantially improving the forecasts, given the local nature of the...

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 145 indicators and ten types of forecast combination schemes to predict housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. We are interested in whether local business confidence indicators facilitate substantial improvements of the forecasts,...

The role of the housing market in the everyday life of society is difficult to overestimate. The housing rents and prices directly affect standard of living of virtually every person. Housing loans constitute the largest liability of households and account for a large proportion of bank lending....

Spekulative Immobilienpreisentwicklungen bergen erhebliche real- und finanzwirtschaftliche Risiken und waren zuletzt verstärkt Gegenstand öffentlicher Debatten. Jüngste Erfahrungen aus anderen Ländern wie den USA oder Spanien haben gezeigt, welche negativen Konsequenzen mit dem Platzen...

Obwohl die Preise für Wohnimmobilien in den 127 größten deutschen Städten in den vergangenen Jahren kräftig gestiegen sind, gibt es nach wie vor keine Anzeichen für eine landesweite Immobilienpreisblase. Zwar haben sich die Preise für Eigentumswohnungen im Vergleich mit dem Jahr 2009 um...

Although the housing prices in the 127 largest German cities have surged strongly in recent years, there is still no sign of a Germanywide housing bubble. In comparison with 2009, the price of condominiums has risen by around 55 percent. Single-family houses cost between 38 and 45 percent more...

We propose a generic algorithm for numerically accurate likelihood evaluation of a broad class of spatial models characterized by a high-dimensional latent Gaussian process and non-Gaussian response variables. The class of models under consideration includes specifications for discrete choices,...

The production of ethanol and sugar from sugar cane has sharply increased for the last 20 years. If there are overall incentives to substitute the consumption of fossil fuels by biofuels, the increase of production and the expansion of new cultivated areas of sugar cane have eventually an impact...

The relation between infrastructure and economic growth has been largely investigated in the literature, but the empirical evidence found has proven to be controversial. This paper aims to empirically analyze the impact of infrastructure stocks on economic growth. In spite of there being...

The Ramsey regression equation specification error test (RESET) furnishes a diagnostic for omitted variables in a linear regression model specification (i.e., the null hypothesis is no omitted variables). Integer powers of fitted values from a regression analysis are introduced as additional...