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The purpose of this study is to examine how households opt for their loan’s duration when it comes to energy efficiency retrofits (EERs). The primary focus is on the time horizon that these types of EERs will provide benefits to the households.

This study examines the second wave of the largest EER support program in Greece in recent years. The authors exploit an idiosyncrasy of the support program which offered interest-free loans. The baseline sample of this study includes approximately 18,000 households awarded the support and opted for a loan. To provide robustness and complement the analysis, the authors also use data from 38,000 households that were awarded support from the first wave of the EER program.

This study finds that EER investments that are likely to deliver longer-term benefits, in the form of energy savings, are positively associated with longer duration. This finding implies that households view such EERs as long-term investments that will consistently provide benefits in the future, thereby tolerating a longer period of incurring the inconvenience of paying monthly installments.

This study posits that an EER can be perceived by the household as an investment that saves money in the long term because of more efficient energy use. To this end, the authors bring forward the duration of the benefits accrued to the household as a driving factor to the household’s decision over the length of the loan.

This study expands on prior literature that has focused on consumer and loans for durables (e.g. cars) by examining EERs. However, EERs are different, as they can save households money in future periods. In addition, house EERs are at the forefront of energy policies and the design of future support programs at the epicenter of several initiatives.

The aim of the paper is to present a review of the fiscal imbalances and debt crisis in Greece and identify the possible links with the recent developments in the Greek property market.

The author follows a non-technical approach to discuss a number of factors that have contributed to the fiscal crisis that Greece has been experiencing since October 2009. The author critically analyses both the “internal” causes of the deteriorating fiscal stance of the Greek economy (that is the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances that the Greek economy faces and the credibility problem of macroeconomic policy) and the “external” factors that might have contributed to the Greek fiscal crisis (that is implications of the recent financial turmoil and the timing of the response of Europe to the Greek fiscal crisis). The author then studies the extent to which fiscal imbalances and the debt crisis have affected the Greek property sector.

The analysis indicates that the current fiscal stance of the Greek economy and the Greek property market crisis are intertwined.

The author believes that these results are useful, make a contribution to the existing knowledge and provide some evidence that current economic recession has a considerable adverse effect on the property sector in Greece.

One of the distinctive features of the paper is to critically discuss the direct and indirect effects of the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances on the Greek property sector. To the best of the author's knowledge, none of the existing studies in this area provides systematic treatment of the Greek fiscal crisis as a contributory factor in explaining the current crisis in the Greek property market.

The aim of this paper is to identify the importance of property sector investment in regional economic growth in Greece.

The paper uses regional accounts data, including investment and employment for all Greek industries. The standard Cobb‐Douglas specification is used. The authors apply random effects and GMM estimators for dynamic panel data and employ two model specifications (aggregate and disaggregate).

The results indicate a positive relationship between investment in real estate services and hotels and restaurants and regional growth. Also, investment in the energy sector, which is closely linked to construction and consequently to housing activity, appears to have a positive and significant growth effect.

The authors believe that these results are useful, make a contribution to the existing knowledge, and provide firm justification that the property sector has a considerable effect on regional economic growth in Greece.

One of the distinctive features of the paper is that it discusses critically the extent to which the Greek property sector, as part of a broader nexus of domestic and global dynamics, affects regional economic growth – either directly or indirectly. To the best of the authors' knowledge, none of the existing studies in this area provides a systematic treatment of the property sector as a contributory factor in explaining the growth performance of Greek regions. The authors believe that this is an important empirical issue, especially given the spatial disparities that characterise Greek economic growth.

The aim of this paper is to present a review of the developments in the Greek construction sector since the year 2000.

The Greek construction sector – one of the most dynamic sectors of the Greek economy – grew quite strongly over the last decade. The paper follows a rather more descriptive approach to examine and analyse the factors that significantly boosted construction activity in Greece since the year 2000. It also studies and critically analyses the extent to which the Greek macro‐environment (legal‐political, economic, socio‐cultural, technological and demographic), as part of a broader nexus of domestic and global dynamics, affects construction companies.

The results indicate that the domestic and global macro‐environment have a substantial effect to the market participants in the Greek construction sector. The ability of the Greek construction companies to deal with, and in some cases take advantage of, the constantly changing domestic and global macro‐environment is expected to crucially affect their future viability and success.

This analysis of the Greek construction sector should be useful for industry professionals, policy‐makers and real estate lenders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, none of the existing studies in this area provides systematic treatment of the state of the macro‐environment as a contributory factor in explaining the performance of the Greek construction companies. The authors believe that this issue is an important one, especially in the case of industries such as construction, which is prone to cyclical activity.