In January 2004, I attended a property conference in Switzerland, to give a talk on the European economy. I talked about the end of European catch-up on US productivity levels. But the most interesting part of the conference was a workshop in which I argued that a number of European countries, the UK being one, had dangerous property booms.
The most dangerous of all, I suggested, was Spain’s, because it is a large European country which was experiencing a huge rise in property prices and, as a result, a huge boom in property development and a correspondingly overheated construction sector. The results could be extremely painful. This remark led to a heated altercation with a Spanish property developer. I understood why he was so angry. But he was wrong, of course.
The Spanish property sector created a huge boom and a huge crash. The big question is what the Spanish authorities should (or could) have done about it.
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