Real-estate as a financial asset, a productive factor and a durable good : four essays on its price determinants.

Summary This thesis is composed of four chapters that focus on different aspects of real estate markets. The first chapter considers real estate as a financial investment. We analyze the influence of real estate on households' portfolio choices and more precisely on the share of risky assets held. We distinguish between the effect of net housing wealth and the effect of housing debt and obtain two effects of opposite signs. The second chapter analyzes real estate as a durable good and seeks to explain its price formation on the basis of its own characteristics as well as those of its environment. The third chapter evaluates the impact of an increase in transfer taxes that took place between 2014 and 2016 in France on real estate volumes and prices. The effect of this reform was a decrease in transaction volumes only in the least tense areas, suggesting a very strong inelasticity of demand in tense markets. Moreover, the increase in the tax was entirely borne by the buyer, regardless of the degree of market tension. The fourth chapter is an analysis of the effects of the Zones Franches Urbaines (localized subsidy program) on real estate prices. The empirical results suggest that the implementation of these zones has had an inflationary effect on commercial real estate and to a lesser extent on residential real estate. Moreover, this inflationary effect is driven by zones with low real estate supply elasticity.