Compared with the rest of the European countries the weight of the house property
market in Spain is very high, which is consistent with the weakness of the tenancy market.
In this context, it has often been argued that an inefficient judicial system, implying a
cumbersome procedure to evict a non-paying tenant or simply needing a long period
to execute a decision, may be an important determinant of the tenancy market weakness,
as it constrains the effective supply by reducing the profitability of landlords. This research
has studied this effect econometrically using a panel data approach and exploiting the
differences in the judicial efficiency that exists among the Spanish provinces. After controlling
for several other factors, this study concludes that the degree of inefficiency of the judicial
system has a positive, although minor, impact on the differences in the property share
among provinces in Spain.