IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/reesec/v48y2020i1p43-88.html

How Does Mortgage Debt Affect Household Consumption? Micro Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Ying Fan
  • Abdullah Yavas

Abstract

The high growth rate of mortgage debt in various emerging and developed economies has captured headlines following the financial crisis. In this article, we investigate how mortgage debt impacts household consumption behavior and various components of household consumption. Utilizing comprehensive household survey data from China, we show that households with a mortgage consume a higher portion of income than households without a mortgage. This is in line with the argument that having a mortgage reduces the uncertainty that the household faces regarding how much to save each month in order to be able to own a house, and this reduced uncertainty leads to lower monthly savings for the purpose of buying a house. We also find that among households with a mortgage, those who spend a larger share of their income on mortgage payments spend less on consumption, reflecting the crowding out effect of mortgage payments on household consumption. Furthermore, we show that a government policy of decreasing the maximum loan‐to‐value ratio has a significant impact on households’ consumption. The article offers the first evidence of the impact of growing mortgage debt on the consumption behavior of households, and will have implications for government policies that encourage mortgage borrowing.

Suggested Citation

  • Ying Fan & Abdullah Yavas, 2020. "How Does Mortgage Debt Affect Household Consumption? Micro Evidence from China," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 48(1), pages 43-88, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:reesec:v:48:y:2020:i:1:p:43-88
    DOI: 10.1111/1540-6229.12244
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6229.12244
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1540-6229.12244?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zan Yang & Ying Fan & Liqing Zhao, 2018. "A Reexamination of Housing Price and Household Consumption in China: The Dual Role of Housing Consumption and Housing Investment," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 472-499, April.
    2. Funke, Michael & Li, Xiang & Zhong, Doudou, 2023. "Household indebtedness, financial frictions and the transmission of monetary policy to consumption: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    3. Kyriaki G. Louka & Nektarios A. Michail, 2022. "Missed Payments, Renegotiations, and Household Consumption," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 20(1), pages 31-50.
    4. Zhang, Yaning & Yuan, Yanzhe & Zhao, Guobin, 2025. "An empirical study on the impact of household debt level on consumption behavior: Based on the mechanism of the housing provident fund system and risk preference," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Agnieszka Strzelecka & Danuta Zawadzka, 2020. "Why Households Borrow Money? Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Households Debts: A Model Approach," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 2), pages 820-839.
    6. Conor O'Toole & Kieran McQuinn & Philip Economides, 2021. "Household savings constraints, uncertainty and macroprudential policy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(2), pages 238-260, May.
    7. Fan, Ying & Sing, Tien Foo, 2021. "Macroeconomic policy-induced wealth effects on Chinese foreign housing investments," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Fan, Ying, 2022. "Demand shocks and price stickiness in housing market dynamics," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    9. Svetlana Todorova & Dimitria Karadimova, 2020. "How Mortgage Interest Rates and Salaries Affect the Mortgage Debt," Izvestia Journal of the Union of Scientists - Varna. Economic Sciences Series, Union of Scientists - Varna, Economic Sciences Section, vol. 9(1), pages 63-70, April.
    10. Ziyu Liu & Ke Zhao & Jinquan Liu & Yongfu Liu, 2023. "The Impact of Household Debt on the Health of the Elderly in China: Evidence from China Family Panel Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-21, February.
    11. Bing Zhu & Lingxiao Li & David H. Downs & Steffen Sebastian, 2019. "New Evidence on Housing Wealth and Consumption Channels," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 51-79, January.
    12. Fan, Ying & Wu, Jing & Yang, Zan, 2017. "Informal borrowing and home purchase: Evidence from urban China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 108-118.
    13. Jie Chen & William Hardin & Mingzhi Hu, 2020. "Housing, Wealth, Income and Consumption: China and Homeownership Heterogeneity," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 48(2), pages 373-405, June.
    14. Huazhu Zheng & Jiao Qian & Guihuan Liu & Yongjiao Wu & Claudio O. Delang & Hongming He, 2023. "Housing prices and household consumption: a threshold effect model analysis in central and western China," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    15. Dechun Song & Juntong Zhu & Guohui Hu & Danyang He & Hong Zhao & Zongshui Wang, 2025. "Text Analysis of Policies in the Real Estate Market: Comparisons of 21 Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-33, September.
    16. Yanyan Huang & Fuzhong Chen, 2022. "The Impact of Household Debt on Food Expenditure and Its Mechanism in Urban China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 466-475, September.
    17. Fan, Ying & Wang, Yidi & Yang, Zan, 2024. "Offspring’s Uncertainty and Dynastic Decisions: Evidence from Urban China," Working Paper Series 24/4, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    18. Chunil Kim & Hyobi Choi & Yeol Choi, 2021. "Retirement Age and Housing Consumption: The Case of South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Ma, Chao & Zhang, Shuoxun, 2024. "Can housing booms elevate financing costs of financial institutions?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    20. Fan, Ying & Wang, Yidi & Yang, Zan, 2025. "Risk-sharing networks, consumption, and asset allocation: Micro-evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • 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:bla:reesec:v:48:y:2020:i:1:p:43-88. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/areueea.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.