Regional Variations of Housing Supply Elasticity in Sweden : A VECM Approach

Sammanfattning: This master's thesis seeks to determine the price elasticity of the Swedish housing supply through a vector error-correction model. The elasticities are estimated on a municipal, county and national level using data for the period 1992-2021. Furthermore, this study aims to find key determinants to explain the regional variations of housing supply elasticities. Overall, the results obtained indicate that the price elasticity of housing supply remains relatively inelastic regardless of the level. Only a small quantity of municipalities exhibited an elastic housing supply, those were Härjedalen, Krokom and Östra Göinge. The supply elasticity was estimated to be 0.074 on a national level. On a county level the elasticities varied between -0.107 and 0.461. The responsiveness of housing supply was found to be determined by the size of population and by land use regulations such as building permits, which is in line with previous empirical studies. Neither population growth, population density, house price or local tax rate were found to be significantly correlated with the obtained supply elasticities. The results imply that the housing supply elasticity varies substantially across counties and municipalities. Moreover, the study shows that the responsiveness of housing supply to fluctuations in price is low, which can serve as a potential indicator for future development of housing prices.