We suggest to use information from the state register of personal cars as an alternative indicator of economic inequality in countries with a large share of shadow economy. We illustrate our approach using the Latvian pool of personal cars. Our main finding is that the extent of household...

In this paper, we suggest to estimate the home rents and prices in German regions/cities using the data from Internet ads offering the housing for rent and sale. Given the richness of information contained in the ads, we are able to construct the quality-adjusted rent and price indices using the...

In this paper, we construct a data set of Internet offer prices for flats in 48 large European cities from 24 countries. The data are collected in January - April 2012 from 33 websites, where the advertisements of flats for sale are placed. Using these data we investigate the determinants of the...

In this paper, we make multi-step forecasts of the monthly growth rates of the prices and rents for flats in 26 largest German cities. Given the small time dimension, the forecasts are done in a panel-data format. In addition, we use panel models that account for spatial dependence between the...

In this paper, we examine the effects of an airport expansion on the prices of houses and flats located under the planned flight corridors. We focus on the role of expectations about the exposure to noise and find that proximity to the planned corridors significantly reduces real estate prices...

Die Preise von Eigentumswohnungen und die Wohnungsmieten sind in den vergangenen Jahren in den meisten deutschen Großstädten deutlich gestiegen. Diese Entwicklung wird sich 2013 fortsetzen. Berlin, Hamburg, München und Frankfurt am Main liegen bei den Preis- und Mietsteigerungen weiterhin an...

Wird ein Flughafen neu gebaut oder ausgeweitet, steigt die Lärmbelästigung im Umkreis erheblich. Die Preise für Wohnungen und Häuser, die unterhalb der Flugkorridore liegen, sinken in der Folge spürbar. Bereits die Erwartungen bezüglich der künftigen Lärmbelastung können zu deutlichen...

Over the past few years, prices and rents for flats went up in most German cities. This trend is expected to continue in 2013. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt am Main will still see the highest increases in property prices and rents. In these cities, housing prices are rising much faster...

Summary This paper proposes a dynamic bi-factor model with Markov switching which detects and predicts turning points of the German business cycle. It estimates simultaneously the composite leading indicator (CLI) and composite coincident indicator (CCI) together with corresponding probabilities...