Avskaffandet av den svenska fastighetsskatten - En estimering av reformens påverkan på bostadspriserna genom synthetic control method

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate the removal of the national property tax in Sweden 2008 and its impact on housing prices in the country. The study also aims to examine the time aspect of the potential impact of the reform. A quantitative synthetic control method is used to analyze the impact over time. The synthetic control method is used to create a synthetic counterfactual Sweden to use as a control group. This enables an observation on the housing prices development for Sweden with the reform, as well as a Synthetic Sweden in absence of the reform. The Synthetic Sweden is created by a weighted combination of eight other European countries. The results imply a notable gradual effect of increasing housing prices which began even before the reform had been installed and coincides with the time of the release of public information indicating that a reform might come into place. When performing the robust-tests however, it turns out the results are not significant. This could either mean that an effect did not occur or that the synthetic control group is lacking in quality.