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Housing Wealth Isn't Wealth

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  • Willem H. Buiter

Abstract

A fall in house prices due to a change in fundamental value redistributes wealth from those long housing (for whom the fundamental value of the house they own exceeds the present discounted value of their planned future consumption of housing services) to those short housing. In a representative agent model and in the Yaari-Blanchard OLG model used in the paper, there is no pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices if this represents a change in fundamental value. There is a pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices if this reflects a change in the speculative bubble component of house prices. Two other channels through which house prices can affect aggregate consumption are (1) redistribution effects if the marginal propensity to spend out of wealth differs between those long housing and those short housing and (2) collateral or credit effects due to the collateralisability of housing wealth and the non-collateralisability of human wealth. A decline in house prices reduces the scope for mortgage equity withdrawal. For given sequences of future after-tax labour income and interest rates, this may depress consumption in the short run while boosting it in the long run.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14204.

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Date of creation: Jul 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14204

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  1. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals, and Misperceptions," NBER Working Papers 11643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Vladimir Klyuev & Paul S. Mills, 2006. "Is Housing Wealth an 'ATM'? The Relationship Between Household Wealth, Home Equity Withdrawal, and Saving Rates," IMF Working Papers 06/162, International Monetary Fund.
  3. Case, Karl E. & Quigley, John M. & Shiller, Robert J., 2012. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus The Housing Market," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt6px1d1sc, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
  4. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jirka Slacalek, 2006. "How Large Is the Housing Wealth Effect? A New Approach," Economics Working Paper Archive 535, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
  5. Iacoviello, Matteo, 2004. "Consumption, House Prices and Collateral Constraints: A Structural Econometric Analysis," 2004 Meeting Papers 207b, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  6. Brayton, Flint & Levin, Andrew & Lyon, Ralph & Williams, John C., 1997. "The evolution of macro models at the Federal Reserve Board," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 43-81, December.
  7. F. Brayton & P. Tinsley, 1996. "A guide to FRB/US: a macroeconomic model of the United States," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 96-42, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  8. Hurst, Erik & Stafford, Frank, 2004. "Home Is Where the Equity Is: Mortgage Refinancing and Household Consumption," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(6), pages 985-1014, December.
  9. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2), pages 299-362.
  10. Buiter, Willem H, 1988. "Death, Birth, Productivity Growth and Debt Neutrality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 279-93, June.
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  13. Flint Brayton & Eileen Mauskopf & David Reifschneider & Peter Tinsley & John Williams, 1997. "The role of expectations in the FRB/US macroeconomic model," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Apr, pages 227-245.
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Cited by:
  1. Charles Calomiris & Stanley D. Longhofer & William Miles, 2009. "The (Mythical?) Housing Wealth Effect," NBER Working Papers 15075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2011. "Consumption, Wealth, Stock and Housing Returns: Evidence from Emerging Markets," NIPE Working Papers 32/2011, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
  3. Christian Aßmann & Jens Hogrefe & Nils Jannsen, 2009. "Costs of Housing Crises: International Evidence," Kiel Working Papers 1524, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  4. Casey B. Mulligan, 2008. "A Depressing Scenario: Mortgage Debt Becomes Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 14514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. R. Calcagno & E. Fornero & M. Rossi, 2009. "The Effect of House Prices on Household Consumption in Italy," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 284-300, October.
  6. José De Gregorio, 2008. "The Tensions of the World Economy," Economic Policy Papers Central Bank of Chile 27, Central Bank of Chile.
  7. Gete, Pedro, 2009. "Housing Markets and Current Account Dynamics," MPRA Paper 20957, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Feb 2010.

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