Does Consumption Respond More to Housing Wealth Than to Financial Market Wealth? If So,Why?

This paper uses long-run equilibrium relationship between consumption and different components of wealth to estimate the effect of changes in housing wealth and financial wealth on consumption. By exploiting this long-run property, it has been shown that a dollar increase in housing wealth increases consumption by seven cents, whereas, a corresponding dollar increase in financial wealth increases consumption by only three cents. This difference in the wealth effect arises because transitory shocks dominate variation in financial wealth, whereas permanent shocks account for most of the variation in housing wealth. This paper also shows that the relative importance of permanent component for housing wealth has witnessed an increase over the last thirty years. Therefore, housing wealth effect has also increased over time.     

住房财富对中国城镇家庭消费的影响

在构建以国内大循环为主体,国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局下,把握扩大内需这一战略基点,激发居民消费潜力,是推动经济高质量发展的关键之一。住房已经成为中国家庭财富的重要组成部分,一方面可通过财富效应促进家庭消费,另一方面也可能由于“房奴效应”降低家庭消费。因此,住房财富对家庭消费的影响方向并不确定。本文基于2013-2019年中国家庭金融调查数据,研究了住房财富对家庭消费的影响,并检验了住房财富影响家庭消费的可能渠道。研究发现,住房财富对城镇家庭消费有显著促进作用,并显著改善了家庭消费结构,住房资产具有财富效应。进一步研究发现,住房财富能够缓解流动性约束,从而提高家庭消费水平。异质性分析表明,住房财富对不同类型的消费具有不同的促进作用,不同地区和拥有住房数量的差别均会对住房财富产生不同影响。根据本文研究,在控制风险的前提下,可发挥既有住房财富对平滑家庭消费的积极作用,促进家庭消费增长,改善家庭消费结构,进一步推进家庭消费升级。     

Wealth,Composition, Housing,Income and Consumption

The present research covering the latest residential boom and bust cycle highlights the lack of uniform or constant time invariant wealth, housing and income relations. More important, wealth composition is shown to be a significant determinant of consumption. The marginal effects of housing equity, financial wealth and income differ substantially based on the composition of household wealth. Households with the highest percentage of net worth in financial assets have much lower income effects, have substantially higher marginal effects associated with stock holdings and have housing equity effects that differ noticeably from other households. Income effects for groups with the smallest amounts of relative financial wealth are dramatically higher than for households with greater financial wealth. Wealth and its composition affect consumption.     

Risk Attitude and Housing Wealth Effect

This paper examines whether the housing wealth effect—the consumption change induced by house price appreciation is dependent upon households’ attitudes toward risk. A simple theoretical model is introduced to highlight a negative relationship between the wealth effect and risk aversion. The paper empirically tests for this negative relationship, using data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. The investigation involves two steps. In the first step, we make use of households’ demographics and their risky and liquid asset holdings to estimate risk aversion. The Heckman correction model is applied to address the issue of limited stock market participation. For the second step, we construct pseudo panel data through grouping households by their birth years and their predicted values of risk aversion, and then, we estimate the responses of households’ consumption changes to house price fluctuations by risk-attitude group. Consistent with the prediction of the theoretical model, the estimation results suggest a significant negative relationship between the housing wealth effect and households’ risk attitudes. Households, who are less risk averse, experience greater consumption changes in response to house price appreciation.     

Housing,Illiquidity, and Wealth

This article develops a model of asset allocation relevant for the representative consumer. Consumption is composed of two items: housing, and other goods and services. The representative household's balance sheet consists largely of a house and a mortgage. Its income statement is dominated by labor earnings, constraining cash expenditures. Housing-market behavior thus underlies intertemporal wealth and consumption allocation. With a housing-dominated portfolio and a maximizing plan, a plausible bound on the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution in consumption can be estimated for a typical household. The model takes account of idiosyncratic characteristics of housing returns and finance. Underwriting standards oblige borrowers to secure mortgage debt with a housing asset and with cash flow, usually from labor income. Access to the mortgage market depends on the loan-to-value ratio, or leverage and debt size, and the debt-coverage ratio, or cash solvency. If there are seasonals or predictable patterns in house returns, their magnitude is amplified for the typical liquidity-constrained household. Empirical results for the aggregate U.S. market confirm predictability and serial correlation in house capital gains. There are seasonals in housing returns. While there is no January effect, above-average returns are obtained during the summer months.     

论地方政府“土地财政”对居民消费的影响——基于全国地级市面板数据的估计

基于跨期消费与投资组合模型研究了"土地财政"对于居民消费的影响机理,并利用我国2004～2010年267个地级市面板数据进行实证检验。研究发现:首先,"土地财政"通过影响居民实际收入以及推高房价共同抑制了居民消费,并且随着"土地财政"依赖程度的增加,居民将相应地增大房产部分在家庭财富配置的比重;其次我国的"房地产财富效应"不显著,但是居民住房面积的增加有助于促进居民消费;最后,提高信贷利率和改善公共服务水平都将有助于提振居民消费。因此,减少地方政府对于"土地财政"依赖、建立居民合理分享土地增值收益机制以及弥补政府保障性住房的职能缺位是提振居民消费的关键。     

债务杠杆、财务脆弱性与家庭异质性消费行为

本文通过引入财务脆弱性来描述家庭无法及时或完全履行偿债义务而发生的财务困境,实证分析了债务杠杆对家庭消费的异质性影响。理论机制分析和基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据的实证研究表明,家庭债务杠杆会提升财务脆弱性,从而弱化跨期消费平滑能力,强化消费预算约束,导致家庭落入“高边际消费倾向、低消费支出水平”的低层次消费路径上。进一步分析发现,对于通过负债投资多套房的家庭而言,高债务杠杆会明显增加不确定冲击下的财务脆弱性,进而对消费产生更大的抑制效应;亲友民间借贷的履约机制相对灵活,可以缓解财务脆弱性对家庭消费的抑制效应;债务杠杆上升引致的财务脆弱性,对耐用消费品支出的压缩效应大于非耐用消费品,对农村家庭消费支出的挤占效应大于城镇家庭。本文的研究为我国“不宜依赖消费金融扩大消费”“规范发展消费信贷”等提供了理论解释,对金融服务促进消费发展具有一定政策启示。     

Household Wealth and Macroeconomic Activity: 2008–2013

This paper provides estimates of the effects of the fall in financial and housing wealth in 2008–09 on overall macroeconomic activity. When the wealth losses are run through a structural macroeconometric model, it is estimated that the fall in wealth contributed about 2.1 percentage points to the rise in the unemployment rate in 2009 and about 3.3 points in 2010. The contribution to the fall in real GDP was 4.5% and 5.4% in the 2 years. These estimates account for most—but not all—of the recessionary increase in unemployment. The remaining increase in unemployment may have resulted more directly from financial stresses, but little evidence is found for this in this study.     

The impact of consumer behavior on financial security of households in Poland

The paper applies the concept of identity to investigate whether consumer behavior matters for a household's financial security. It is assumed that considerable part of households may express their identity through status-oriented consumption. The research is carried out in two steps. First, the index of financial security is built and used to determine the level of financial security experienced by working-age families in Poland. Second, the simulation results based on an econometric model are employed to find the answer to the question: Does financial insecurity result more from the need to manifest consumption at the higher level than average in an income-group of which people are members, or people want to be distinguishable inside their own income-group but they do not identify with a group having consumption at visibly higher level, or from the need to improve self-image by bringing own consumption closer to the pattern of a group with higher wealth status of which they are not members? The source of data is the 2005-2009 Households Budget Surveys in Poland. The findings offer empirical evidence for the relevance of consumer behavior for financial security of households in Poland. Considerable part of households expresses identity through conspicuous consumption. Both groups of households, the insecurity rich and the insecurity poor, accept the same ranking of status goods: a car on the first position, next homes (housing and equipment) and clothes on the third place. Status-oriented consumption creates life beyond means and pushes even relatively rich households towards financial insecurity.     

我国股市财富效应对居民消费影响的实证检验——基于生命周期—持久收入理论扩展模型的新视角

基于生命周期-持久收入(LC-PIH)理论,本文建立居民收入、消费支出、股市市值和购房支出几个变量之间的实证检验模型,以研究我国股市的财富效应。选取季度和月度频率数据,测算我国2003~2018年全口径居民消费和2013~2018年乘用车消费的股市财富效应,实证结果发现全口径居民消费主要受收入的影响,股市的财富效应不显著,检验结果符合持久收入说;乘用车消费除受收入的影响之外,股市的财富效应也显著。基于实证结果,并结合发达国家较为普遍存在的财富效应,提出三点建议:一是稳步提高居民可支配收入,是促进我国消费平稳增长、发挥消费拉动经济增长基础性作用的根本;二是要发挥出股市在消费中的财富效应,需改变我国股市长期存在的牛短熊长困境;三是应进一步提高我国居民通过养老金和企业年金等间接渠道参与股市的比重,使养老金、企业年金等长期资金与资本市场形成良性互动。     

Real Estate Versus Financial Wealth in Consumption

The consumption function for the U.S. economy is estimated with real estate and financial wealth for quarterly data for 1952:1–2001:4. An additional dollar of real estate wealth increases consumption by 8 cents in the current year, as compared with only 2 cents for financial wealth. The results are consistent with theoretical bounds on the marginal propensity to consume from aggregate wealth. The decline in the stock market during 2000–2001 had a limited impact on aggregate demand in part because of an offsetting real estate wealth effect.     

Wealth shocks,unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession

Data from the 2009 Internet Survey of the Health and Retirement Study show that many US households experienced large capital losses in housing and financial wealth, and that 5% of respondents lost their job during the Great Recession. For every loss of 10% in housing and financial wealth, the estimated drop in household expenditure was about 0.56% and 0.9%, respectively. Those who became unemployed reduced spending by 10%. In line with predictions of standard inter-temporal choice models, households who perceived the stock market shock to be permanent adjusted spending much more than those who perceived the shock to be temporary.     

流动性约束视角下我国房价财富效应与最优利率规则研究

后危机时代中国房价的波动引起了广泛关注,如何利用以货币政策为代表的宏观调控抑制高房价透支未来经济发展的程度,成为当前管理层高度关注的焦点。本文建立了新凯恩斯模型框架分析房价波动如何通过流动性约束影响消费,从而揭示了中央银行货币政策与房价的财富效应之间的关系,得出最优利率规则中房价的最优权重随预期通胀、产出缺口、房价和名义利率而变动的结论。通过实证分析本文进而认为,利率规则比货币供应量更能迅速调控房价的增长和居民消费的扩张。中国房价上涨的财富效应虽然比较明显,但流动性约束的作用机制需要一个过程才能显现,利率调控的效果也有一个量变到质变的过程,从而在理论上为中央银行制定应对房价的利率政策提供了一定启示。     

收入差异下的住房财富效应分化——基于283个地级市数据和CHFS家庭微观数据的实证分析

本文将收入分配结构因素纳入LC-PIH模型,试图从收入分层角度寻找我国住房市场弱财富效应的根源。基于283个地级市的面板数据和CHFS家庭微观调查数据的实证研究表明:房价对消费的影响具有门限特征,中等收入城市的住房财富效应最为明显;收入作用下的家庭住房财富效应也呈现倒U形。总体上,我国住房财富效应较弱源于收入的结构性差异,中等收入群体比重偏低可能导致房价上涨对消费的促进作用被低收入阶层和高收入阶层的挤出作用抵消。     

New Evidence on Housing Wealth and Consumption Channels

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper provides new evidence on the effect of housing wealth on consumption by focusing on the impact of home-equity extraction. We develop a...     

Are Housing Wealth Effects Asymmetric in Booms and Busts?

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper investigates the effects of household indebtedness and housing wealth on consumption. To identify exogenous movements of housing wealth...     

Housing returns,precautionary savings and consumption: Micro evidence from China

We investigate how changes in home prices affect consumption in China via a wealth channel. Examining a panel of 7955 households via fixed effects and instrumental variable methods, we find a marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth (home-price MPC) that is concentrated on goods consumed for pleasure rather than necessity. This trend is driven by the value of second homes rather than that of primary residences, suggesting a wealth channel. We further examine whether returns on housing investment, including rental income and home appreciation, fund the wealth channel; however, we find little supporting evidence. In contrast, a reduction in health risk increases the home-price MPC, but a reduction in income risk that also relieves precautionary saving motives does not. Our results are robust to alternative data, common-factor progress, expenditure shocks and bequest motives. We contribute by examining second homes, which carry little of the dual nature of housing that primary residences do, to identify a controversial wealth channel, and by studying the relative effects of health and income risks on the wealth channel.     

Current Wealth,Housing Purchase,and Private Housing Loan Demand in Japan

Japanese households accumulate wealth for down payments at a high rate. Therefore, current wealth plays an important role in home acquisition as well as public loans whose direct mortgage lending is a strong support for home purchasers. We estimate the wealth effect on private mortgage debt as well as housing consumption by applying a model where mortgage-debt demand is derived from house-purchase decisions and is determined jointly with housing consumption. We use a simultaneous equation Tobit estimation method. Wealth effects on private mortgage debt, likelihood of borrowing, and housing consumption are not elastic. On the other hand, a change in housing consumption affects the likelihood of borrowing elastically much more than the private mortgage amount of borrowers. Housing and private mortgage markets fluctuate very closely with the number of participants in the mortgage market. Therefore, the number of housing starts is linked strongly to the private mortgage market.     

How Large Are Housing and Financial Wealth Effects? A New Approach

This paper presents a simple new method for measuring “wealth effects” on aggregate consumption. The method exploits the stickiness of consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption “habits”) to distinguish between immediate and eventual wealth effects. In U.S. data, we estimate that the immediate (next quarter) marginal propensity to consume from a $1 change in housing wealth is about 2 cents, with a final eventual effect around 9 cents, substantially larger than the effect of shocks to financial wealth. We argue that our method is preferable to cointegration‐based approaches, because neither theory nor evidence supports faith in the existence of a stable cointegrating vector.     

Is domestic consumption dragged down by real estate sector?—Evidence from Chinese household wealth

This paper investigates whether domestic consumption dragged down by real estate sector, using the panel data of China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS) in 2012, 2014 and 2016. This paper constructs the consumption structure upgrading index represented by food, daily necessities and cultural, educational and entertainment expenditure according to the industrial upgrading rate, and builds a model based on LC-PIH theory to analyze whether the change of household wealth has wealth effect on residents consumption. Through empirical analysis, this paper finds that risk-free financial assets have a squeezing effect on household consumption, and risky financial assets, net real estate and productive fixed assets have a significant wealth effect on household consumption. Finally, this article proposed how to promote the upgrading of Resident Consumption Structure in China.