IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bap/journl/170102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asymmetric Effects on Financial Cycles in a Monetary Union with Diverging Country Preferences for Variable- and Fixed-Rate Mortgages

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Richter

    () (Financial Stability Department, Deutsche Bundesbank Wilhelm-Epstein-Stra?e 14, 60431 Frankfurt am Main, GERMANY)

Abstract

Before as well as at the time when the European Monetary Union (EMU) was launched, a number of economists were discussing possible asymmetrical effects of monetary transmission stemming from apparent structural differences between national credit markets. On the one hand, they hoped that the single currency would lead to a process of harmonization and on the other hand, they focused on asymmetric effects on output and inflation. In the current article, it will be argued that, additionally, consideration needs to be given to an asymmetrical impact on the national financial cycles in a monetary union. This is especially true given a diverging prevalence of variable-rate and fixed-rate mortgages, as can be observed within the EMU. We propose a "new credit channel" and an "interest burden channel" as analytical concepts for a better understanding of such effects. These working hypotheses will be constructed using (formally) stylized transmission channels and hardened by stylized facts for the euro area. Our main findings based on stylized facts are that, first of all, average initial interest rates for newly originated mortgages in Ireland and Spain - as countries with a prevalence of variable-rate contracts - were 1.2 percentage points lower from 2003 to 2005 in comparison to Germany. This may have supported a development towards a "debt sustainability-illusion" in these countries. Secondly, aggregated interest payments for mortgages doubled in Ireland and Spain as a percentage of GDP from 2005 to 2008. In the end, the results may imply that countries with predominantly variable rate mortgages are ceteris paribus more likely to need macroprudential policy activities in the first place and do so with a higher intervention frequency than their EMU counterparts with a prevalence of fixed-rate mortgages.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Richter, 2017. "Asymmetric Effects on Financial Cycles in a Monetary Union with Diverging Country Preferences for Variable- and Fixed-Rate Mortgages," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 7, pages 19-36, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bap:journl:170102
    Note: This article represents the author¡¯s personal opinions and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Deutsche Bundesbank or its staff.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bapress.ca/ref/ref-article/1923-7529-2017-01-19-18.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mardi Dungey & Firmin Doko Tchatoka & Graeme Wells & María B. Yanotti, 2015. "Mortgage Choice Determinants: The Role of Risk and Bank Regulation," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 91(295), pages 417-437, December.
    2. Alessandro Calza & Tommaso Monacelli & Livio Stracca, 2013. "Housing Finance And Monetary Policy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 101-122, January.
    3. Ehrmann, Michael & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2014. "Household Risk Management and Actual Mortgage Choice in the Euro Area," MEA discussion paper series 201406, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    4. Leticia Arroyo Abad & Kareem Khalifa, 2015. "What are stylized facts?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 143-156, June.
    5. Mikael Juselius & Mathias Drehmann, 2015. "Leverage dynamics and the real burden of debt," BIS Working Papers 501, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Carlos Garriga & Finn E. Kydland & Roman Sustek, 2013. "Mortgages and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 19744, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Don N. MacDonald & Kimberly Winson-Geideman, 2012. "Residential Mortgage Selection, Inflation Uncertainty and Real Payment Tilt," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 34(1), pages 51-72.
    8. Gabriele Foà & Leonardo Gambacorta & Luigi Guiso & Paolo Emilio Mistrulli, 2019. "The Supply Side of Household Finance," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3762-3798.
    9. repec:mea:meawpa:14283 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul van den Noord, 2005. "Tax Incentives and House Price Volatility in the Euro Area: Theory and Evidence," Economie Internationale, CEPII research center, issue 101, pages 29-45.
    11. Philomena M. Bacon & Peter G. Moffatt, 2012. "Mortgage Choice as a Natural Field Experiment on Choice under Risk," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1401-1426, October.
    12. Liu, Ming-Hua & Margaritis, Dimitri & Tourani-Rad, Alireza, 2008. "Monetary policy transparency and pass-through of retail interest rates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 501-511, April.
    13. Yelena Takhtamanova & Frederick T. Furlong & David Lang, 2014. "Mortgage Choice in the Housing Boom: Impacts of House Price Appreciation and Borrower Type," Working Paper Series 2014-5, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, revised Mar 2014.
    14. Maclennan, Duncan & Muellbauer, John & Stephens, Mark, 1998. "Asymmetries in Housing and Financial Market Institutions and EMU," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 54-80, Autumn.
    15. M.M.G. Fase & G.J. de Bondt, 1999. "Institutional environment and monetary transmission in the euro area: a cross-country view (in Dutch)," WO Research Memoranda (discontinued) 599, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    16. Andrew Hughes Hallett & Laura Piscitelli, 1999. "EMU in Reality: The Effect of a Common Monetary Policy on Economies with Different Transmission Mechanisms," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 337-358, December.
    17. Belke, Ansgar & Eppendorfer, Carsten & Heine, Jens Michael, 2002. "Finanzmarktstrukturen und geldpolitischer Transmissionsprozess in der EWU," Wirtschaftsdienst – Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik (1949 - 2007), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 82(7), pages 435-444.
    18. Rubio, Margarita, 2019. "Monetary And Macroprudential Policies Under Fixed And Variable Interest Rates," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 1024-1061, April.
    19. Andreas Fuster & James Vickery, 2015. "Securitization and the Fixed-Rate Mortgage," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 176-211.
    20. Yevgeny Mugerman & Moran Ofir & Zvi Wiener, 2016. "How Do Homeowners Choose Between Fixed and Adjustable Rate Mortgages?," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(04), pages 1-21, December.
    21. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2014. "What Calls to ARMs? International Evidence on Interest Rates and the Choice of Adjustable-Rate Mortgages," NBER Working Papers 20408, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Goggin, Jean & Holton, Sarah & Kelly, Jane & Lydon, Reamonn & McQuinn, Kieran, 2012. "The financial crisis and the pricing of interest rates in the Irish mortgage market: 2003-2011," Research Technical Papers 01/RT/12, Central Bank of Ireland.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial stability; Mortgage market; Interest rate fixation periods; Monetary union; Monetary transmission; Housing cycle; Financial cycle; Household debt service;

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    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:bap:journl:170102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Carlson). General contact details of provider: http://www.bapress.ca .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.