IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/japwor/v29y2014icp59-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Hyun Jeong
  • Lee, Dongyeol
  • Son, Jong Chil
  • Son, Min Kyu

Abstract

This paper investigates why household debt in Korea has increased so rapidly over the past decade and whether it is sustainable, adopting a multi-faceted approach which includes a time series analysis, a quantitative analysis based on household panel data, and an analysis using a debt dynamics equation derived from the household budget constraint. A regression analysis reveals that household debt growth has been significantly related to house price increases, banks’ lax attitudes toward household lending, and financial institutions’ favorable funding conditions. Also 70–80% of the total debt increase has been accounted for by high income or newly indebted households. The debt dynamics equation analysis shows that the rapid rise in the ratio of household debt to disposable income is attributable not only to the increase in household asset purchases but also to the dampened growth in disposable income and the reduced savings rate. The sustainability analyses indicate that Korean households’ debt sustainability is unlikely to deteriorate sharply within a short period of time unless two extreme scenarios, under which house prices decline by 5% a year over the next five years, or a significantly large macroeconomic shock similar to the 1997 crisis hits the economy, would be realized.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Hyun Jeong & Lee, Dongyeol & Son, Jong Chil & Son, Min Kyu, 2014. "Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 59-76.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:japwor:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:59-76
    DOI: 10.1016/j.japwor.2013.12.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0922142514000024
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.japwor.2013.12.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    2. Enrique G. Mendoza & Marco E. Terrones, 2008. "An Anatomy Of Credit Booms: Evidence From Macro Aggregates And Micro Data," NBER Working Papers 14049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Valdés, Rodrigo & Landerretche, Oscar, 2001. "Lending booms: Latin America and the world," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123387, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Atish R. Ghosh & Jun I. Kim & Enrique G. Mendoza & Jonathan D. Ostry & Mahvash S. Qureshi, 2013. "Fiscal Fatigue, Fiscal Space and Debt Sustainability in Advanced Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 4-30, February.
    5. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    6. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    7. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:fth:harver:1435 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Ms. Meral Karasulu, 2008. "Stress Testing Household Debt in Korea," IMF Working Papers 2008/255, International Monetary Fund.
    10. repec:rnp:ecopol:09111 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Mr. Cyril Pouvelle, 2012. "Bank Credit, Asset Prices and Financial Stability: Evidence From French Banks," IMF Working Papers 2012/103, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Orazio P. Attanasio & Laura Blow & Robert Hamilton & Andrew Leicester, 2009. "Booms and Busts: Consumption, House Prices and Expectations," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 20-50, February.
    13. Hansen, Bruce E., 1999. "Threshold effects in non-dynamic panels: Estimation, testing, and inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 345-368, December.
    14. Guy Debelle, 2004. "Macroeconomic implications of rising household debt," BIS Working Papers 153, Bank for International Settlements.
    15. Karen E Dynan & Donald L Kohn, 2007. "The Rise in US Household Indebtedness: Causes and Consequences," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),The Structure and Resilience of the Financial System, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    16. Stephen Cecchetti & Madhusudan Mohanty & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2011. "The real effects of debt," BIS Working Papers 352, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Rodrigo Valdes & Oscar Landerretche, 2001. "Lending Booms: Latin America and the World," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 47-100.
    18. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2009. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1449-1496.
    19. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-481, March.
    20. Karen E. Dynan & Donald L. Kohn, 2007. "The rise in U.S. household indebtedness: causes and consequences," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-37, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 2000. "Bubbles and Crises," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 236-255, January.
    22. Nathan S. Balke, 2000. "Credit and Economic Activity: Credit Regimes and Nonlinear Propagation of Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 344-349, May.
    23. Calza Alessandro & Sousa João, 2006. "Output and Inflation Responses to Credit Shocks: Are There Threshold Effects in the Euro Area?," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-21, May.
    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. Jong Chil Son & Hail Park, 2020. "The Effects of Regional House Prices on Consumption in Korea: Heterogeneous Behaviors According to Homeownership Status and Lifecycle Stage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-15, April.
    2. Benyan Tan & Yingzhu Guo & Yan Wu, 2024. "The influence and mechanism of female-headed households on household debt risk: empirical evidence from China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Athiphat Muthitacharoen, 2016. "Gauging Households’ Debt Tolerance: Evidence from Thailand," Applied Economics Journal, Kasetsart University, Faculty of Economics, Center for Applied Economic Research, vol. 23(1), pages 59-74, June.
    4. Jong Chil Son & Hail Park, 2019. "U.S. Interest Rate and Household Debt Sustainability: The Case of Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-16, July.
    5. Kim, Young Il & Kim, Hyoung Chan & Yoo, Joo Hee, 2016. "Household Over-indebtedness and Financial Vulnerability in Korea: Evidence from Credit Bureau Data," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 38(3), pages 53-77.
    6. Dongyeol Lee & Hyunjoon Lim, 2015. "Is household debt sustainable in Korea?," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 224-242, April.
    7. Hyun Jeong Kim & Jong Chil Son & Myung-Soo Yie, 2017. "House Price Dynamics with Household Debt: The Korean Case-super-," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 39-59, March.
    8. Athiphat Muthitacharoen, 2015. "Gauging Households’ Debt Tolerance: Evidence from Thailand," PIER Discussion Papers 12., Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, revised Dec 2015.
    9. Kwon, Yujin & Park, Sung Y., 2023. "Modeling an early warning system for household debt risk in Korea: A simple deep learning approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Kim, Young Il & Hwang, Min, 2016. "Household Debt and Consumer Spending in Korea: Evidence from Household Data," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 38(4), pages 23-44.
    11. Massimo Coletta & Riccardo De Bonis & Stefano Piermattei, 2019. "Household Debt in OECD Countries: The Role of Supply-Side and Demand-Side Factors," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 1185-1217, June.
    12. Fujun Lai & Sze Nam Chan & Wai Yan Shum & Nan Zhou, 2017. "Household Debt and Housing Price: An Empirical Study across 36 Countries," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(11), pages 227-227, October.

    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. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    2. Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1029-1061, April.
    3. Lorenzoni, Guido, 2014. "International Financial Crises," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 689-740, Elsevier.
    4. Puspa Amri & Apanard P. Angkinand & Clas Wihlborg, 2011. "International comparisons of bank regulation, liberalization, and banking crises," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(4), pages 322-339, November.
    5. Selim Elekdag & Yiqun Wu, 2013. "Rapid Credit Growth in Emerging Markets: Boon or Boom-Bust?," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 45-62, September.
    6. Mr. Selim A Elekdag & Mr. Yiqun Wu, 2011. "Rapid Credit Growth: Boon or Boom-Bust?," IMF Working Papers 2011/241, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Serwa, Dobromił, 2013. "Identifying multiple regimes in the model of credit to households," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 198-208.
    8. Perugini, Cristiano & Hölscher, Jens & Collie, Simon, 2013. "Inequality, credit expansion and financial crises," MPRA Paper 51336, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Gary B. Gorton, 2012. "Some Reflections on the Recent Financial Crisis," NBER Working Papers 18397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    11. Esteban Prieto & Sandra Eickmeier & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Time Variation in Macro‐Financial Linkages," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1215-1233, November.
    12. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    13. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Thomas Philippon & Dimitri Vayanos, 2017. "The Analytics of the Greek Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-81.
    14. Guérineau, Samuel & Léon, Florian, 2019. "Information sharing, credit booms and financial stability: Do developing economies differ from advanced countries?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 64-76.
    15. Björn Richter & Moritz Schularick & Paul Wachtel, 2021. "When to Lean against the Wind," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(1), pages 5-39, February.
    16. Julián A. Caballero, 2016. "Do Surges in International Capital Inflows Influence the Likelihood of Banking Crises?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(591), pages 281-316, March.
    17. Helbling, Thomas & Huidrom, Raju & Kose, M. Ayhan & Otrok, Christopher, 2011. "Do credit shocks matter? A global perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 340-353, April.
    18. Serdar Kabaca, 2011. "Labor Share Fluctuations in Emerging Markets: The Role of the Cost of Borrowing," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1122, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    19. Detken, Carsten & Smets, Frank, 2004. "Asset price booms and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 364, European Central Bank.
    20. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Maurice Obstfeld, 2012. "Stories of the Twentieth Century for the Twenty-First," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 226-265, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household debt; Sustainability; Debt dynamics equation; Sensitivity analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • 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:eee:japwor:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:59-76. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505557 .

    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.