Subsidising homeownership decentralises cities, as Muth (1967) suggested over half a century ago. This article focuses on
the related question of whether repealing a homeownership subsidy recentralises cities. This question is relevant today, given
the ubiquity of homeownership subsidies. We provide a first quasi-experimental test of a subsidy repeal's spatial effects
by examining Germany's 2005 homeownership subsidy reform. We find that repealing the subsidy contributed to recentralising
Germany's cities. Since recentralisation helps abate carbon dioxide emissions, repealing a homeownership subsidy also helps
mitigate climate change.
In contrast to other large economies, the euro area shows a high regional dispersion of inflation rates since the mid of 2021.
The energy price shock uncovered structural differences among member countries of the currency union. Additionally, European
governments responded with administrative or fiscal interventions of varying degree. A consistent pattern emerges with low
inflation countries implementing policies dampening the HICP more intensively, while high inflation countries behaved more
restrained. Potential monetary policy responses to an energy price shock include a differential weighting of country specific
inflation rates in the loss function or, alternatively, macroprudential measures. If a wage-price spiral is set in motion,
the ECB would have to swiftly raise the key interest rates to confirm its commitment to the inflation target.
