ZEW Strengthens its Research Expertise in Real Estate Markets and Financing

The research department "International Finance and Financial Management" of the Mannheim Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) establishes a new focus: A team of five researchers and ZEW research associates will commit to analysis of financial decisions made by private households, among them Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Martin Weber from the University of Mannheim. The title of the project will be "Finances of Private Households and Real Estates". The emphasis is divided into three core topics: "Real Estate and Housing Markets in Europe", "Lending to Households and Private Sector Debt Overhang" and "Financial Advice and Household Decision Making".

"Within finance research, financing of private households is a rapidly growing field. Since they are the dominating category of assets, real estates play an essential role. Therefore, we should increase the scientific efforts put into this topic," says Dr. Oliver Lerbs, deputy head of the ZEW research department "International Finance and Financial Management" and coordinator of the new focus.

The international Leibniz network "ReCapNet - Real Estate Markets and Capital Markets", for which ZEW hosts, inter alia, an annual conference, has helped the Mannheim institute to build up a scientific reputation in the fields of real estates. This reputation also shows in extensive projects of policy counselling. "We use this reputation specifically to establish new cooperation with internationally renowned scientists from the fields of household finance and real estate," says Professor Sascha Steffen, head of the ZEW finance research department.

An example for such cooperation is a study jointly crafted by ZEW and the IREBS International Real Estate Business School at the University of Regensburg. According to that study, functional scientific rent indices implicitly need more market affinity and better data foundation.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Oliver Lerbs, Phone +49(0)621/1235-147, E-mail lerbs@zew.de