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Consumption and Wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Alvin Tan

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

  • Graham Voss

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

Two remarkable features of the Australian economy over recent years have been strong growth in private consumption expenditure and household wealth. This paper examines the relationship between consumption and wealth in an effort to better understand aggregate consumption behaviour. We find a reasonably robust steady-state relationship between non-durables consumption, labour income and aggregate household wealth for the period 1988:Q4–1999:Q3. Based upon this relationship, an increase in per capita wealth of one dollar is eventually associated with a rise in annual non-durables consumption of approximately four cents. We also find that changes in both non-financial and financial assets have significant effects on consumption. Above-trend growth of wealth in recent years has contributed significantly to growth in consumption over this time. A further noteworthy result concerns the recent demutualisations and share floats in Australia; perhaps surprisingly, we find no evidence that these events had a significant effect on consumption growth. Finally, we place our results within the broader empirical literature and examine whether they are consistent with standard economic theories of consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvin Tan & Graham Voss, 2000. "Consumption and Wealth," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2000-09, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2000-09
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Ioannidis, C. & Peel, D.A. & Matthews, K.P.G., 2006. "Expected stock returns, aggregate consumption and wealth: Some further empirical evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 439-445, June.
    3. Ricardo M. Sousa, 2003. "Property of stocks and wealth effects on consumption," NIPE Working Papers 2/2003, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    4. Le, Thai-Ha, 2015. "Do soaring global oil prices heat up the housing market? Evidence from Malaysia," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-8, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Hong, Pingfan & Li, Hung-Yi, 2017. "Avoiding pitfalls in China’s transition of its growth model," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 712-728.
    6. Sousa, Ricardo M., 2009. "Wealth effects on consumption: evidence from the euro area," Working Paper Series 1050, European Central Bank.
    7. Swamy, Vighneswara, 2017. "Wealth Effects and Macroeconomic Dynamics – Evidence from Indian Economy," MPRA Paper 76836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. 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.
    9. David M. Williams, 2010. "Consumption, wealth and credit liberalisation in Australia," Economics Series Working Papers 492, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Malcom Edey & Luke Gower, 2000. "National Saving: Trends and Policy," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: David Gruen & Sona Shrestha (ed.),The Australian Economy in the 1990s, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Bin Li & Benjamin Liu & Eduardo Roca, 2010. "An Empirical Investigation of Consumption CAPMs in the Australian Market," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201011, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    12. Md Harun Or Rosid & Zhao Xuefeng & Sujan Chandra Paul & Md Reza Sultanuzzaman, 2020. "The macroeconomic determinants of cross-country efficiency in wealth maximization: A joint analysis through the SFA and GMM models," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 9(6), pages 91-107, October.
    13. Thomas Nitschka, 2010. "International Evidence for Return Predictability and the Implications for Long‐Run Covariation of the G7 Stock Markets," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 527-544, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    consumption; life-cycle hypothesis; wealth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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