House prices increased considerably in Denmark during the pandemic, while consumption remained moderate. The marginal propensity to consume out of changes in housing wealth was modest in the years leading up to the pandemic. The largest housing wealth gains during the pandemic occurred among household segments with relatively low marginal propensities to consume.

Some regional banks are highly exposed to flood risk. Yet, there is little evidence that banks manage these exposures. The lack of flood risk management in these banks could worsen the adverse local economic impact of a flood. Therefore, banks should incorporate flood risk in their risk management.

The ultimate objective of macroprudential policy is to contribute to financial stability by curbing the build-up of systemic risks and alleviating negative outcomes for the economy should risks materialize . Measuring and communicating whether policy goals are achieved is challenging, as financial crises are rare and risks are often only measurable in case they materialize. The memo outlines how growth-at-risk can be used to illustrate the objectives of macroprudential policy.

Borrower-based regulation, influencing housing buyers’ access to credit, would have different effects depending on buyer’s demographics, wealth and location. By modelling housing buyers’ preferences and budget constraints, we find that any such regulation would push demand to suburban areas. Limits on debt-to-income ratios (DTI) would mainly affect buyers in the largest cities; however, we find that the restrictions would not affect net demand for small apartments in Copenhagen.

This Economic Memo examines the role of international recruitments in the Danish labour market. It shows that while only a small share of new recruitments has tended to come from abroad, foreign labour has contributed markedly to employment growth in Denmark. Looking forward, Danish firms still appear to have the option of recruiting workers from abroad.

This memo studies the impact of demographic shifts and income inequality on the evolution of savings rates in Denmark, and compares with evidence from the US. Income inequality has followed similar trends in Denmark as in the US, and savings rates vary in a similar way over the life cycle and along the income distribution in the two countries. Changes in savings behavior play an important role for the evolution of total savings.

The majority of energy renovations of houses cost more than they increase the sales price. This holds particularly in the metropolitan area and Aarhus, but also in a number of rural areas. Renovations that increase the sales price more than the renovation costs reduce CO2 emissions only marginally and are typically only possible for houses in and around the medium to large towns and more generally in the geographically more central parts of the country. (Memo available in Danish only).

Since the beginning of the pandemic, matching in the Danish labour market seems to have become less efficient: a given number of job seekers and vacancies result in fewer matches than previously. This economic memo studies mismatch between job seekers and vacancies as a potential explanation. Mismatch was an important driver during the great financial crisis, but much less so during the pandemic.

We show that the cash holdings of a typical Danish company have increased after the 2007/08 financial crisis. Especially the cash holdings of small companies have seen a strong increase. The increase in cash holdings coincides with a decrease in the use of loan financing for the typical company, which suggests a decrease in loan demand or supply to these companies. The development of cash holdings is also driven by a strong selection effect: companies with low cash holdings have been especially likely to exit during and after the financial crisis.

This economic memo investigates the drivers of the Danish-German 10-year yield spread, which has widened 25 basis points since January 2020. The widening is found to be driven mainly by larger collateral scarcity of German sovereign bonds due to the ECB’s significant bond purchases and a substantial increase in duration on callable Danish mortgage bonds.

Before the pandemic, wage and price inflation remained low in Denmark and other advanced economies, despite falling unemployment rates. We attribute the subdued inflation to low competition among firms to hire employed workers. This same force may continue to constrain inflation once the current rise in energy and commodity prices has been passed through to consumer prices.

This memo analyzes the evolution of firm ownership concentration in the private Danish rental market and its link to rental prices. We show that the overall increase in rental market concentration between 2010 and 2020 is mainly driven by the rental market in the Capital Region. Further, we document a positive empirical link between market concentration and rental prices.

The price of natural gas has risen significantly since the summer of 2021. Higher heating costs may put downward pressure on homes heated with gas. Seen in isolation, the average price drop will be DKK 73,000 for a house with gas, if the gas price develops in line with the expectations of financial markets. (Memo available in Danish only).

Artificial intelligence (AI) can improve the resiliency of both individual financial institutions and the financial sector as a whole. Yet, its users must balance benefits and risks of these technologies. This paper illustrates five focus points which financial institutions should consider when moving from traditional models to complex AI systems.

The Danish labour market has tightened substantially during the recovery of the Danish economy. Pandemic-related labour demand can account for some of the employment growth. The majority of the movements on the labour market have occurred among marginal jobs, and cross-sectoral movements have been slightly higher than usual.

This memo explores the impact of digitalisation on Danish workers and companies. For this, we first build two complementary measures of digitalisation that leverage Danish administrative data. We then document a positive association between the level of digitalisation and sales of large companies. In the final part, we study the workers in the IT sector – the producers of the digital tools. We find that the workforce in the IT sector is more specialised than the rest of the Danish workforce, and that this specialisation has increased during the past decade.