Testing for long-run convergence across regional house prices in the UK: a pairwise approach

Abstract

This article tests for stochastic convergence in UK regional house prices using the recently developed pairwise approach. This approach allows for unit root tests to be conducted on all N(N − 1)/2 possible pairs of house price differentials across N regions in the UK, thus avoiding the need to choose a base region or alternative national figure as the benchmark. Using mix adjusted house price data from 1973:Q4 to 2008:Q4, the main finding is that there is no evidence of long run convergence among regional house prices or of an equilibrium relationship towards which UK regional house prices have a tendency to gravitate.