This report presents key findings and policy messages from the OECD Housing Project. Led by the OECD Economics Department headed by Chief Economist Laurence Boone, this horizontal project has involved several OECD directorates and committees. It was carried out over 2019-2020 under the leadership of the OECD Economic Policy, then chaired by Tyler Goodspeed (United States), and its Working Party No. 1 on Macroeconomic and Structural Policy Analysis, chaired by Arent Skjæveland (Norway). The project manager was Luiz de Mello, Director of Policy Studies (Economics Department), with the support of Asa Johansson, Head of the Structural Surveillance Division (Economics Department).
Boris Cournède and Volker Ziemann, both OECD Economics Department, coordinated the report building on work designed by Peter Hoeller, who headed the Public Economics Division of the Economics Department until his retirement in April 2020.
The principal authors were Boris Cournède (Chapters 1 and 3), Volker Ziemann (Chapters 1, 4 and 7), Willem Adema, Marissa Plouin, Jonas Fluchtmann and Pauline Fron, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (Chapters 2 and 9), Orsetta Causa, Economics Department (Chapters 5 and 6), Katherine Farrow, Ioannis Tikoudis, and Walid Oueslati, Environment Directorate as well as Thibault Abergel and Víctor García Tapia from the International Energy Agency (Chapter 7), Sean Dougherty, Network on Fiscal Relations Across Levels of Government (Chapter 8), Jaebeum Cho and Rudiger Ahrend (Chapters 8 and 9), both Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (Chapter 8) and Pierre-Alain Pionnier, Statistics and Data Directorate (Chapter 9). Bert Brys, Pierce O’Reilly, Bethany Millar-Powell and Alastair Thomas, all Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, conducted the work on housing-related marginal effective tax rates that is used throughout the report. Luiz de Mello wrote Box 1.1 on Future Housing Challenges, Federica De Pace Box 1.7 on COVID-19 housing policy responses and Maria Chiara Cavalleri (Economics Department) Box 6.3 on inter-regional mobility while a European Mortgage Federation team comprising Luca Bertalot, Sofia Garrido, Jennifer Johnson and Daniele Westig prepared Box 1.8 on green mortgages. Maxime Nguyen, Naomi Cohen and Young-Hyun Shin, all Economics Department, provided analysis for the boxes on country reform experiences. Young-Hyun Shin, Economics Department, provided statistical assistance for all chapters. Celia Rutkoski prepared the report for publication. Luiz de Mello, Alain de Serres and Asa Johansson provided guidance and extensive comments on various versions of the report. Boris Cournède, Federica De Pace and Volker Ziemann edited the report.
The report has benefited from strong support from and fruitful exchanges with the chairs and delegates of Working Party No. 1 of the Economic Policy Committee on Macroeconomic and Structural Policy Analysis, the Economic Policy Committee, the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee, the Statistics and Statistical Policy Committee, the Regional Development Policy Committee, the Working Party on Urban Policy, the Environment Policy Committee and the Housing Horizontal Project Steering Group. Colleagues from various Directorates provided valuable comments: the Office of the Secretary-General, the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the Environment Directorate, the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, and the Network on Fiscal Relations Across Government Levels.