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Does wealth affect consumption? Evidence for Italy

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Author Info
Monica Paiella () (Banca d'Italia)

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Abstract

This paper analyses the dynamics of Italian household wealth over the 1990s and assesses the strength of the wealth effects on consumption, using as a benchmark the United States. In a period of sharply rising asset prices, Italian household net worth rose significantly, but on the whole individuals were net buyers of assets and they appear to have realized, directly or indirectly, only a small portion of the capital gains accrued on their wealth. This is consistent with the lack of evidence of important direct wealth effects on consumption. Financial wealth effects turn out to be small because Italian households are not large scale owners of financial assets, even though their marginal propensity to consume out of financial wealth lies within the range commonly reported for the US and other industrialized countries. By contrast, housing market effects are small, even smaller than financial market effects, despite widespread homeownership, because the marginal propensity to consume out of real assets is very low. The propensity to consume out of financial wealth has tended to diminish as pension reforms have reduced household pension wealth. On the other hand, the propensity to consume out of real wealth has increased as financial deregulation and the intensification of competition among financial institution have eased credit constraints for households.

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Paper provided by Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department in its series Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) with number 510.

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Date of creation: Jul 2004
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Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_510_04

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Related research
Keywords: household saving behavior; housing wealth; financial wealth; capital gains; marginal propensity to consume out of wealth;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

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References listed on IDEAS
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  2. Andrea Brandolini & Luigi Cannari & Giovanni D'Alessio & Ivan Faiella, 2004. "Household Wealth Distribution in Italy in the 1990s," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 530, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2002. "Limited Asset Market Participation and the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," NBER Working Papers 8896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Orazio P. Attanasio & James Banks & Sarah Tanner, 2002. "Asset Holding and Consumption Volatility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 771-792, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Morris A. Davis & Michael G. Palumbo, 2001. "A primer on the economics and time series econometrics of wealth effects," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-09, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  8. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller & John M. Quigley, 2001. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market Versus the Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 8606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Monica Paiella, 2003. "Revisiting the Implications of Heterogeneity in Financial Market Participation for the C-CAPM," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 473, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
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  11. James M. Poterba, 2000. "Stock Market Wealth and Consumption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 99-118, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "Spendthrift in America? On Two Decades of Decline in the U.S. Saving Rate," NBER Working Papers 7238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Joseph Tracy & Henry Schneider, 2001. "Stocks in the household portfolio: a look back at the 1990s," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Apr. [Downloadable!]
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  17. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2002. "Limited Asset Market Participation and the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 825-853, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Magnus Andersson & Antonello D’Agostino, 2008. "Are sectoral stock prices useful for predicting euro area GDP?," Working Paper Series 876, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. Salotti, Simone, 2009. "Wealth effect in the US: evidence from brand new micro-data," MPRA Paper 17732, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ricardo M. Sousa, 2009. "Wealth Effetcs on Consumption: Evidence from the euro area," NIPE Working Papers 12/2009, NIPE - Universidade do Minho. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Davide Fiaschi - Matteo Marsili, 2009. "Distribution of Wealth and Incomplete Markets: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Discussion Papers 2009/83, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  5. Charles Grant & Tuomas Peltonen, 2005. "Housing and Equity Wealth Effects of Italian Households," DNB Working Papers 043, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Luigi, Cannnari & Giovanni, D'Alessio & Romina, Gambacorta, 2008. "Capital Gains and Wealth Distribution in Italy," MPRA Paper 15108, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  7. Andrea Brandolini & Giovanni D’Alessio & Luigi Cannari & Ivan Faiella, 2004. "Household Wealth Distribution in Italy in the 1990s," Economics Working Paper Archive wp414, Levy Economics Institute, The. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Francesco FURLANETTO, 2008. "Does Monetary Policy React to Asset Prices? Some International Evidence," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 08.02, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Andersson, Magnus & D'Agostino, Antonello, 2008. "Are sectoral stock prices useful for predicting euro area GDP?," Research Technical Papers 2/RT/08, Central Bank & Financial Services Authority of Ireland (CBFSAI). [Downloadable!]
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