IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revpoe/v19y2007i1p1-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Random Walk Down Maple Lane? A Critique of Neoclassical Consumption Theory with Reference to Housing Wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Greg Hannsgen

Abstract

The development of the permanent income/life cycle consumption hypothesis was a key blow to Keynesian and Kaleckian economics, and, according to George Akerlof, it 'set the agenda' for modern neoclassical macroeconomics. This paper focuses on the relationship of housing wealth to neoclassical consumption theory and, in particular, the degree to which homes can be treated collectively with other forms of 'permanent income.' The neoclassical analysis will be evaluated as a partly normative and partly positive one, in recognition of the dual function of the neoclassical theory of rationality. The paper rests its critique primarily on the distinctive role of homes in social life; theories that fail to recognize this role jeopardize the social and economic goods at stake. Since many families do not own large amounts of assets other than their places of residence, these issues have important ramifications for the relevance of consumption theory as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • Greg Hannsgen, 2007. "A Random Walk Down Maple Lane? A Critique of Neoclassical Consumption Theory with Reference to Housing Wealth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 1-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:19:y:2007:i:1:p:1-20
    DOI: 10.1080/09538250601080719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538250601080719
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09538250601080719?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Metin Cosgel & Lanse Minkler, 2004. "Religious Identity and Consumption," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(3), pages 339-350.
    2. Fisher, Jonathan D. & Johnson, David S. & Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Torrey, Barbara Boyle, 2008. "The retirement consumption conundrum: Evidence from a consumption survey," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 482-485, June.
    3. Bayoumi, Tamim A, 1993. "Financial Deregulation and Consumption in the United Kingdom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(3), pages 536-539, August.
    4. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, December.
    5. Wilfred Dolfsma, 2009. "Paradoxes of Modernist Consumption: Reading Fashions," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Institutions, Communication and Values, chapter 9, pages 113-122, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Edward Wolff & Ajit Zacharias, 2009. "Household wealth and the measurement of economic well-being in the United States," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(2), pages 83-115, June.
    7. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    8. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou & Edward Chilcote & Gennaro Zezza, 2006. "Are Housing Prices, Household Debt, and Growth Sustainable?," Economics Strategic Analysis Archive sa_jan_06, Levy Economics Institute.
    9. Martha Starr, 2004. "Consumption, Identity, and the Sociocultural Constitution of "Preferences": Reading Women's Magazines," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(3), pages 291-305.
    10. L. Randall Wray, 2005. "The Ownership Society: Social Security Is Only the Beginning," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_82, Levy Economics Institute.
    11. Bernanke, Ben S, 1983. "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 257-276, June.
    12. Fang Yang, 2005. "Consumption Along the Life Cycle: How Different is Housing?," 2005 Meeting Papers 718, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, March.
    14. DiPasquale, Denise & Glaeser, Edward L., 1999. "Incentives and Social Capital: Are Homeowners Better Citizens?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 354-384, March.
    15. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    16. Greg Hannsgen, 2004. "Borrowing Alone The Theory and Policy Implications of the Commodification of Finance," Finance 0402011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Paul Davidson, 2002. "Financial Markets, Money and the Real World," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2467.
    18. J. Walter Elliott, 1980. "Wealth and Wealth Proxies in a Permanent Income Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 509-535.
    19. Kosuke Aoki & James Proudman & Gertjan Vlieghe, 2002. "Houses as collateral: has the link between house prices and consumption in the U.K. changed?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 163-177.
    20. Davidson, Paul, 1972. "Money and the Real World," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(325), pages 101-115, March.
    21. Shefrin, Hersh M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "The Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 609-643, October.
    22. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Greg Hannsgen & Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, 2012. "Fiscal Traps and Macro Policy after the Eurozone Crisis," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_127, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Ray Forrest & Yosuke Hirayama, 2015. "The financialisation of the social project: Embedded liberalism, neoliberalism and home ownership," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(2), pages 233-244, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greg Hannsgen, 2004. "Borrowing Alone The Theory and Policy Implications of the Commodification of Finance," Finance 0402011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Alogoskoufis, George & Malliaris, A.G. & Stengos, Thanasis, 2023. "The scope and methodology of economic and financial asymmetries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    3. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    4. Janine Aron & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Housing Wealth, Credit Conditions and Consumption," CSAE Working Paper Series 2006-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. Galindo, Arturo & Schiantarelli, Fabio, 2002. "Credit Constraints in Latin America: An Overview of the Micro Evidence," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1438, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Jiménez, Gabriel & Ongena, Steven & Peydró, José-Luis & Saurina, Jesús, 2010. "Credit supply - Identifying balance-sheet channels with loan applications and granted loans," Working Paper Series 1179, European Central Bank.
    7. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    8. Daniel Detzer, 2012. "New instruments for banking regulation and monetary policy after the crisis," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 9(2), pages 233-254.
    9. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    10. Marlène Isoré, 2011. "International Propagation of Financial Shocks in a Search and Matching Environment," FIW Working Paper series 068, FIW.
    11. Yuan, Mingwei & Zimmermann, Christian, 2004. "Credit crunch in a model of financial intermediation and occupational choice," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 637-659, December.
    12. Greg Hannsgen, 2006. "The Disutility of International Debt: Analytical Results and Methodological Implications," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Philip Arestis & Jesus Ferreiro & Felipe Serrano (ed.), Financial Developments in National and International Markets, chapter 1, pages 1-24, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Pierre Pessarossi & Frédéric Vinas, 2015. "The supply of long-term credit after a funding shock: evidence from 2007-2009," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 15073, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    14. Santiago L.E. Acosta Ormaechea, 2007. "A Small Open Economy Model with Currency Mismactches and a Financial Accelerator Mechanism," DEGIT Conference Papers c012_035, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    15. Denise Côté & Christopher Graham, 2007. "Corporate Balance Sheets in Developed Economies: Implications for Investment," Staff Working Papers 07-24, Bank of Canada.
    16. Aoki, Kosuke & Proudman, James & Vlieghe, Gertjan, 2004. "House prices, consumption, and monetary policy: a financial accelerator approach," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 414-435, October.
    17. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Yuliy Sannikov, 2012. "Macroeconomics with Financial Frictions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000384, David K. Levine.
    18. Boivin, Jean & Kiley, Michael T. & Mishkin, Frederic S., 2010. "How Has the Monetary Transmission Mechanism Evolved Over Time?," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 369-422, Elsevier.
    19. Peltonen, Tuomas A. & Sousa, Ricardo M. & Vansteenkiste, Isabel S., 2012. "Wealth effects in emerging market economies," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 155-166.
    20. Marlène Isoré, 2011. "International Propagation of Financial Shocks in a Search and Matching Environment," FIW Working Paper series 068, FIW.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:19:y:2007:i:1:p:1-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.