IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nzb/nzbans/2017-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the Wealth Effect on Consumption in New Zealand

Author

Abstract

Understanding the link between changes in wealth and household consumption is crucial to the Reserve Bank’s assessment of business cycle dynamics. In the Reserve Bank’s pursuit of price stability, changes in the policy rate influence household spending in part via their impact on asset prices and wealth. Recent trends have prompted a reassessment of the relationship between household spending and wealth. Since the global financial crisis (GFC), per capita consumption growth in New Zealand has been modest even as housing wealth has been rising rapidly. The modest growth in per capita consumption has coincided with an increase in the household saving rate, a slowing in credit growth, and a positive injection of equity into the housing sector by households. This Analytical Note estimates the response of household consumption (its elasticity) with respect to housing and financial wealth, and income between 1982 and 2016. To examine the stability of the relationship, the model is also re-estimated across a split sample. The results suggest that there has been a change in the relationship between household consumption and wealth. It finds: -On a dollar for dollar basis, consumption appears to respond more to changes in financial wealth than fluctuations in housing wealth over the full sample; -The response of consumption to wealth has fallen in the sample after 2005, particularly the response with respect to housing wealth. The change in the response of household consumption to wealth could reflect a reassessment of expected future capital gains from each form of wealth following the GFC, particularly given heightened uncertainty in the housing market. It may also reflect a desire by highly indebted households to pay down debt, along with the influence of low interest rates, indicating a prolonged but transitory period of deleveraging and higher savings. Disentangling the aforementioned factors is beyond the scope of this note but could usefully be addressed with cross-sectional data at the household level.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Wong, 2017. "Revisiting the Wealth Effect on Consumption in New Zealand," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Notes series AN2017/03, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzb:nzbans:2017/03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Analytical%20notes/2017/an2017-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Case Karl E. & Quigley John M. & Shiller Robert J., 2005. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus the Housing Market," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-34, May.
    2. Nikola Dvornak & Marion Kohler, 2007. "Housing Wealth, Stock Market Wealth and Consumption: A Panel Analysis for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(261), pages 117-130, June.
    3. Emmanuel De Veirman & Ashley Dunstan, 2008. "How do Housing Wealth, Financial Wealth and Consumption Interact? Evidence from New Zealand," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2008/05, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    4. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    5. Janine Aron & John V. Duca & John Muellbauer & Keiko Murata & Anthony Murphy, 2012. "Credit, Housing Collateral, And Consumption: Evidence From Japan, The U.K., And The U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(3), pages 397-423, September.
    6. Gael Price, 2014. "How has the LVR restriction affected the housing market: a counterfactual analysis," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Notes series AN2014/03, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    7. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jiri Slacalek, 2011. "How Large Are Housing and Financial Wealth Effects? A New Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 55-79, February.
    8. Sydney C. Ludvigson & Charles Steindel, 1999. "How important is the stock market effect on consumption?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 5(Jul), pages 29-51.
    9. Veronica John Muellbauer & Veronica David M Williams, 2012. "Credit conditions and the real economy: the elephant in the room," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Property markets and financial stability, volume 64, pages 95-101, Bank for International Settlements.
    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. Shaar, Karam, 2019. "Essays on modern economic issues in international trade, exchange rates and housing," Working Paper Series 16724, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    2. Karam Shaar & Fang Yao, 2018. "Housing Leverage and Consumption Expenditure - Evidence from New Zealand Microdata," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2018/06, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    3. Shaar, Karam, 2019. "Essays on modern economic issues in international trade, exchange rates and housing," Working Paper Series 8039, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.

    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. Dalina Amonhaemanon, 2015. "The Impact of Stock Price and Real Estate Price Shocks on Consumption: The Thai Experience," International Journal of Financial Research, International Journal of Financial Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 6(1), pages 137-148, January.
    2. Márquez, Elena & Martínez-Cañete, Ana R. & Pérez-Soba, Inés, 2013. "Wealth shocks, credit conditions and asymmetric consumption response: Empirical evidence for the UK," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 357-366.
    3. John Muellbauer, 2012. "When is a Housing Market Overheated Enough to Threaten Stability?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    4. Christian Dreger & Hans-Eggert Reimers, 2012. "The long run relationship between private consumption and wealth: common and idiosyncratic effects," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 11(1), pages 21-34, April.
    5. Zhou Xia & Carroll Christopher D., 2012. "Dynamics of Wealth and Consumption: New and Improved Measures for U.S. States," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-44, March.
    6. Sousa, Ricardo M., 2009. "Wealth effects on consumption: evidence from the euro area," Working Paper Series 1050, European Central Bank.
    7. Sousa, Ricardo M., 2010. "Consumption, (dis)aggregate wealth, and asset returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 606-622, September.
    8. Alain Galli, 2017. "How Reliable are Cointegration-Based Estimates for Wealth Effects on Consumption? Evidence from Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 153(4), pages 437-479, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Janine Aron & John Muellbauer, 2013. "Wealth, Credit Conditions, and Consumption: Evidence from South Africa," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 161-196, October.
    11. 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.
    12. Ersi Athanassiou & Ekaterini Tsouma, 2017. "Financial and Housing Wealth Effects on Private Consumption: The Case of Greece," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 15(1), pages 63-86.
    13. 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.
    14. Fisher, Lance A. & Otto, Glenn & Voss, Graham M., 2010. "The response of Australian consumption to housing wealth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 284-299, March.
    15. Xiaorong Zhou & Meng-Shiuh Chang & Karen Gibler, 2016. "The asymmetric wealth effects of housing market and stock market on consumption in China," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 196-216, April.
    16. Monica Paiella, 2009. "The Stock Market, Housing And Consumer Spending: A Survey Of The Evidence On Wealth Effects," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 947-973, December.
    17. Maral Kichian & Milana Mihic, 2018. "How important are wealth effects on consumption in Canada?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 784-798, August.
    18. Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & O'Connell, Brian & O'Toole, Conor, 2013. "How do banking crises affect aggregate consumption? Evidence from international crisis episodes," Papers WP464, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    19. 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.
    20. Savignac, Frédérique & Arrondel, Luc & Lamarche, Pierre, 2015. "Wealth effects on consumption across the wealth distribution: empirical evidence," Working Paper Series 1817, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    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:nzb:nzbans:2017/03. 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: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Knowledge Centre (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbngvnz.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.