A tail of two countries

Publishing date: 01 June 2008
Authors: Jakob von Weizsäcker Alan Ahearne

The outlook for two of the euro areas best performing economies to date, Ireland and Spain, has darkened dramatically recently amid severe downturns in housing markets. What do these countries experiences tell us about the functioning of EMU?

Bruegels new policy brief A Tail of Two Countries examines the behaviour of housing markets in Ireland and Spain during EMU and considers what features and policies may have facilitated the overheating of housing markets in these countries. It also discusses the role of large migration flows in spurring growth in housing.

About the authors

Jakob von Weizsäcker

Jakob von Weizsäcker heads the department for economic policy and tourism at the Thuringian Economics Ministry in Erfurt and is a non-resident fellow at Bruegel where he was resident fellow form 2005 to 2010.

He previously worked at the World Bank in Washington (2002-2005) where he was country economist for Tajikistan and the Federal Economics Ministry in Berlin (2001-2002) where he headed the office of a junior minister. Before that, he worked for Vesta, a venture capital firm, and held research positions at the Center for Economic Studies in Munich and CIRED in Paris.
Alan Ahearne

Alan Ahearne is a Professor and the Head of Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Ireland and has served as adviser to the IMF. He is Chairman of the ESRI and Department of Finance Joint Research Programme on the Macro-economy and Taxation.

Alan served as economic adviser to Ireland’s former Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan from 2009 to 2011.

Alan obtained his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (in Pittsburgh) in 1998 and subsequently joined the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, where he worked as a Senior Economist for seven years.

His research at Bruegel has focused on macroeconomics, international finance and public policy, including macroeconomic adjustment in the euro area, reform of the euro area and governance of the EU, global current account imbalances, housing booms and busts, and the international experience with banking and financial crises.