Capital Flows, Real Estate, and Local Cycles: Evidence from German Cities, Banks, and Firms
69 Pages Posted: 2 Jan 2020 Last revised: 20 Nov 2020
There are 4 versions of this paper
Capital Flows, Real Estate, and Local Cycles: Evidence from German Cities, Banks, and Firms
Capital Flows, Real Estate, and Local Cycles: Evidence from German Cities, Banks, and Firms
Capital Flows, Real Estate, and Local Cycles: Evidence from German Cities, Banks, and Firms
Capital Flows, Real Estate, and Local Cycles: Evidence from German Cities, Banks, and Firms
Date Written: December 9, 2019
Abstract
We study how a capital flow shock impacts German cities’ GDP growth depending on the state of their local real estate markets. Identification exploits a policy framework assigning refugees to cities on a quasi-random basis and variation in non-developable area for the construction of a measure of exposure to local real estate market tightness. We estimate that the German cities most exposed to real estate market tightness grew at least 1.9 percentage points more than the least exposed ones, cumulatively, during the 2009-2014 period. Capital inflows shift credit to firms with more collateral. More collateral also leads firms to hire and invest more in response to these shocks.
Keywords: Cross-border Flows, Capital Flows, Collateral, City Business Cycles, Credit, Germany, GIPS Spread, Real Estate, Tangible Assets
JEL Classification: F3, R3, E3
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation