Ireland’s moribund property market may take between seven and 18 years to fully recover from the recent crash, according to two Central Bank economists.
They also said that while economic growth, in terms of GDP, may recover within two or three years, unemployment may “remain elevated for some time”.
The study, conducted by Maria Woods and Siobhán O’Connell, examined similar financial crashes in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Japan in order to predict the potential longer-term consequences of Ireland’s current crisis.
Factoring in country-specific differences, their study found that Ireland's banking crisis was the most expensive of 147 banking crashes examined.
Their report concluded that the clear lesson from international experience was that “early loss recognition and swift policy responses” were instrumental in remedying a dysfunctional banking sector.
“International experience highlights that credit growth remains subdued in the years following a crisis, even as the economy begins to recover,” the report said.
Their study suggested both residential and commercial property sectors may take a significant number of years to fully recover, ranging from 11 years to 22 years from the start of the crisis which, in Ireland’s case, was 2007.
The report noted it took Finnish house prices 22 years before pre-crisis levels were regained following the country’s financial crash in the early 1990s.
Swedish commercial property values still remain below pre-crisis peaks following its financial meltdown in the 1990s, the report said.
It found export growth and exchange-rate developments were "pivotal" in reviving economic recovery in the four countries examined.
The international experience also indicated that although GDP can recover within a number of years, unemployment can remain high for a period.
However, in the Irish case, the recovery in the level of real GDP appeared to be slower than in any of the countries examined, the report's authors said.
