A home is not only a place to live. It is a long-lived asset whose value reflects the housing service it provides over time and the return buyers require, given interest rates and risk. The ongoing combination of high house price-to-rent ratios and strained affordability suggests housing remains a macroeconomic vulnerability, though financial conditions appear more resilient than before the housing bust and subsequent Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

A sequence of major economic and geopolitical events has reshaped the structure of global trade in the past decade. It began with U.S. imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018. The postpandemic followed with widespread disruption to global value chains—the process of manufacturing a product in stages across several countries.

Mortgage rates are an important channel for monetary policy pass-through. However, this channel is complex.