Trends in the housing market: Italy and the international comparison

The real estate sector is of particular interest from a central bank's perspective; due to its size, it directly and indirectly affects economic developments, financial stability and the monetary policy stance. The volume collects the papers by economists of the Bank of Italy and the discussions by external experts which were presented at the workshop "Trends in the housing market: Italy and the international comparison", held in Rome at the Bank of Italy on 20 November 2012. The various contributions are organised in three sections, which respectively deal with the cyclical pattern of the real estate market in Italy, its structural characteristics and the international comparison.