Golden Visas and Housing Markets

Clara Martínez-Toledano

“This paper studies the impact of golden visa programmes on housing markets. We exploit the introduction of the Spanish golden visa programme in 2013, after which non-EU investors can obtain a Spanish visa when investing at least 500,000 Euro in Spanish real estate. Using difference-in-differences techniques, we find that real estate prices grew faster in municipalities exposed to the programme, relative to those non-exposed. Golden visa programmes thus appear to have unintended consequences on housing markets via asset prices”.

About the speaker:

Clara Martínez-Toledano is an Assistant Professor of Financial Economics at Imperial College Business School and Wealth Distribution Coordinator at WID.world. She is also a CEPR and CESifo Research Affiliate and a Research Fellow at the EU Tax Observatory. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral scholar at Columbia Business School.