IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7576.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do House Prices Affect Consumption? A Re-assessment of the Wealth Hypothesis

Author

Listed:
  • Cristini, Annalisa

    (University of Bergamo)

  • Sevilla, Almudena

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper undertakes a comparison exercise to disentangle what drives the opposite findings regarding the effect of house prices on consumption documented in two papers using the same data set for the UK. On the one hand, Campbell and Cocco (2007) find that old owners are the most benefited by a house price increase and young renters the least, confirming the so-called wealth hypothesis. On the other hand, Attanasio, Blow, Hamilton, and Leicester (2009) find that house prices have the same impact on consumption across age groups, consistent with the so-called common factor hypothesis. First, we confirm that the findings in both papers can be reproduced. Second, we rule out a number of potential reasons related to the basic data construction, and provide evidence that the functional form (i.e., an Euler equation of consumption vs. a reduced form life-cycle model) and not data aggregation considerations (household level data vs. synthetic cohort data) may be at the root of the conflicting results in the two papers. Our findings revive the debate of whether there is an effect of house prices on consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristini, Annalisa & Sevilla, Almudena, 2013. "Do House Prices Affect Consumption? A Re-assessment of the Wealth Hypothesis," IZA Discussion Papers 7576, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7576
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7576.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campbell, John Y. & Cocco, Joao F., 2007. "How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 591-621, April.
    2. Sydney Ludvigson & Christina H. Paxson, 2001. "Approximation Bias In Linearized Euler Equations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 242-256, May.
    3. Ludwig Alexander & Sløk Torsten, 2004. "The Relationship between Stock Prices, House Prices and Consumption in OECD Countries," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-28, March.
    4. Hryshko, Dmytro & José Luengo-Prado, María & Sørensen, Bent E., 2010. "House prices and risk sharing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 975-987, November.
    5. Richard Disney & John Gathergood & Andrew Henley, 2010. "House Price Shocks, Negative Equity, and Household Consumption in the United Kingdom," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1179-1207, December.
    6. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2007. "Replication in Economics," NBER Working Papers 13026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Dewald, William G & Thursby, Jerry G & Anderson, Richard G, 1986. "Replication in Empirical Economics: The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking Project," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 587-603, September.
    8. Søren Leth-Petersen, 2010. "Intertemporal Consumption and Credit Constraints: Does Total Expenditure Respond to an Exogenous Shock to Credit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1080-1103, June.
    9. Orazio P. Attanasio & Laura Blow & Robert Hamilton & Andrew Leicester, 2009. "Booms and Busts: Consumption, House Prices and Expectations," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 20-50, February.
    10. Ludwig, Alexander & Sløk, Torsten, 2004. "The relationship between stock prices, house prices and consumption in OECD," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 04-12, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    11. Riccardo De Bonis & Andrea Silvestrini, 2012. "The effects of financial and real wealth on consumption: new evidence from OECD countries," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(5), pages 409-425, March.
    12. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2011. "Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 255-296, March.
    13. Martin Browning & Mette Gørtz & Søren Leth‐Petersen, 2013. "Housing Wealth and Consumption: A Micro Panel Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 401-428, May.
    14. Carroll Christopher Dixon, 2001. "Death to the Log-Linearized Consumption Euler Equation! (And Very Poor Health to the Second-Order Approximation)," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-38, April.
    15. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126.
    16. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1994. "The UK Consumption Boom of the Late 1980s: Aggregate Implications of Microeconomic Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1269-1302, November.
    17. László Mátyás & Patrick Sevestre (ed.), 2008. "The Econometrics of Panel Data," Advanced Studies in Theoretical and Applied Econometrics, Springer, number 978-3-540-75892-1, July-Dece.
    18. Browning, Martin & Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1985. "A Profitable Approach to Labor Supply and Commodity Demands over the Life-Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 503-543, May.
    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. Henrik Yde Andersen & Søren Leth-Petersen, 2021. "Housing Wealth or Collateral: How Home Value Shocks Drive Home Equity Extraction and Spending," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 403-440.
    2. Kai Dong & Ching-Ter Chang & Shaonan Wang & Xiaoxi Liu, 2021. "The Dynamic Correlation among Financial Leverage, House Price, and Consumer Expenditure in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-18, March.
    3. Yener Coskun & Burak Sencer Atasoy & Giacomo Morri & Esra Alp, 2018. "Wealth Effects on Household Final Consumption: Stock and Housing Market Channels," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-32, June.
    4. Gustafsson, Peter & Stockhammar, Pär & Österholm, Pär, 2016. "Macroeconomic effects of a decline in housing prices in Sweden," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 242-255.
    5. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca, 2022. "House prices, housing wealth and financial well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    6. Lee, Seungyoon, 2023. "House prices, homeownership, and household consumption: Evidence from household panel data in Korea," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Signe Rosenberg, 2015. "The Impact of a Change in Real Estate Value on Private Consumption in Estonia," Research in Economics and Business: Central and Eastern Europe, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology, vol. 7(2).
    8. Hori Masahiro & Niizeki Takeshi, 2019. "Housing Wealth Effects in Japan: Evidence Based on Household Micro Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-28, April.

    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. Almudena Sevilla Sanz & Annalisa Cristini, 2011. "Do House Prices Affect Consumption? A Comparison Exercise," Economics Series Working Papers 589, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Hori Masahiro & Niizeki Takeshi, 2019. "Housing Wealth Effects in Japan: Evidence Based on Household Micro Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-28, April.
    3. Mairead Roiste & Apostolos Fasianos & Robert Kirkby & Fang Yao, 2021. "Are Housing Wealth Effects Asymmetric in Booms and Busts?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 578-628, May.
    4. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi & Rooij, Maarten van, 2021. "Heterogeneous wealth effects," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Kadir Atalay & Stephen Whelan & Judith Yates, 2016. "House Prices, Wealth and Consumption: New Evidence from Australia and Canada," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(1), pages 69-91, March.
    6. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio, 2015. "Wealth shocks, unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-41.
    7. Swamy, Vighneswara, 2017. "Wealth Effects and Macroeconomic Dynamics – Evidence from Indian Economy," MPRA Paper 76836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ahec Šonje, Amina & Čeh Časni, Anita & Vizek, Maruška, 2014. "The effect of housing and stock market wealth on consumption in emerging and developed countries," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 433-450.
    9. Suari-Andreu, Eduard, 2021. "Housing and household consumption: An investigation of the wealth and collateral effects," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    10. William Elming & Andreas Ermler, 2016. "Housing equity, saving and debt dynamics over the Great Recession," IFS Working Papers W16/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Lee, Seungyoon, 2023. "House prices, homeownership, and household consumption: Evidence from household panel data in Korea," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Evren Ceritoglu, 2017. "The effect of house price changes on cohort consumption in Turkey," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 17(3), pages 1-99–110.
    13. Orazio Attanasio & Laura Blow & Robert Hamilton & Andrew Leicester, 2005. "Consumption, house prices and expectations," Bank of England working papers 271, Bank of England.
    14. Nancy van Beers & Michiel Bijlsma & Remco Mocking, 2015. "House Price Shocks and Household Savings: evidence from Dutch administrative data," CPB Discussion Paper 299, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Rumman Khan, 2018. "Assessing cohort aggregation to minimise bias in pseudo-panels," Discussion Papers 2018-01, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    16. Hryshko, Dmytro & José Luengo-Prado, María & Sørensen, Bent E., 2010. "House prices and risk sharing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 975-987, November.
    17. Pedro Trivin, 2022. "The wealth-consumption channel: evidence from a panel of Spanish households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1377-1428, December.
    18. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Wealth Shocks and MPC Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 25999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Orazio P. Attanasio & Laura Blow & Robert Hamilton & Andrew Leicester, 2009. "Booms and Busts: Consumption, House Prices and Expectations," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 20-50, February.
    20. Francesco Caloia & Mauro Mastrogiacomo, 2021. "The Housing Wealth Effect: a comparative study of Italy and the Netherlands," Working Papers 713, DNB.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wealth hypothesis; house prices; consumption; common factor hypothesis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp7576. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.