The impact of the 2014 increase in the real estate transfer taxes on the French housing market

This paper estimates the effects of an increase in the share of the real estate transfer taxes (RETT) rates going to the French départements from 3.80% to 4.50%. Not all the départements voted the RETT increase on the same date, which is the starting point of a natural experiment. Using a difference-in-differences design, we estimate two main effects. (1) An anticipation effect, one month before the implementation of the reform, in order to avoid the RETT increase. (2) A retention effect in the post-reform period. In the end, the net effect (retention minus anticipation) corresponds to an average drop in
transactions of around 6% over the first three months after the reform, that is, approximately 15,000 transactions lost at national level. If we find a short term effect of the reform, we do not find evidence of a medium-or long-term effect.