IMF Working Papers-Feeling Rich, Feeling Poor: Housing Wealth Effects and Consumption in Europe

December 8, 2023-Summary:
Households across Europe are struggling with a double crisis-the worst inflation shock since the World War II and a sudden correction in house prices. There is a rich literature on how housing price cycles affect consumer spending, finding mixed results with a wide range of consumption responses to changes in housing wealth.

In this paper, using quarterly data on 20 countries in Europe over the period 1980-2023, we analyze the dynamic relationship between inflation-adjusted housing wealth and consumer spending and obtain statistically significant and economically intuitive results.

Household consumption responds positively and swiftly to changes in real house prices and gross disposable income as expected. Using the estimated coefficients, we can deduce that the average quarter-on-quarter decline of -1.96 percent in real house prices in the first quarter of 2023 in Europe could dampen consumer spending by about -0.51 percentage points in real terms on a cumulative basis over a horizon of eight quarters.

France Eases Retail Crypto Rules as Europe Unlocks Access for Millions

December 9, 2025-AMF doctrine shift follows UK and Nordic moves;
CoinShares leads the European market with a 32% AUM share
CoinShares International Limited ("CoinShares" or "the Group") (Nasdaq Stockholm: CS; USOTCQX: CNSRF) - a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, which has announced a merger with Vine Hill Capital Investment Corp (Nasdaq: VCIC), welcomes France's AMF decision to open retail access to regulated crypto ETNs.

Archax Executes First After-Hours Transaction of its Tokenized Canary HBR ETF on Hedera Mainnet

December 5, 2025-Archax, the UK/EU-regulated digital asset platform, today announced the tokenization and first onchain transaction of the Canary HBR ETF on the Hedera Network. The completed out-of-hours transaction is a landmark achievement in blockchain-based finance: an ETF linked to Hedera's native token, tokenized and transacting on the Hedera Network itself, outside of traditional market hours.