Enhancing euro area capital stock estimates

Abstract

Official euro area wide statistics on capital stock and its breakdowns by asset types and sectors are not yet available, but very useful for economic and financial stability analysis. This paper proposes a constrained optimization model with the help of which a full cross-sector classification of capital stock by non-financial asset type is estimated. The model is applied for the estimation of capital stock by institutional sector, including households' housing stock and households' housing wealth both for the euro area and euro area Member States currently not estimating and/or publishing such data.