IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/moneco/v147y2024ics0304393224000527.html

Effects of monetary policy on household expectations: The role of homeownership

Author

Listed:
  • Ahn, Hie Joo
  • Xie, Shihan
  • Yang, Choongryul

Abstract

We study the role of homeownership in the effectiveness of monetary policy on households’ expectations based on individual-level microdata in the U.S. We find that homeowners lower their near-term inflation expectations and optimism about the labor market outlook in response to a rise in mortgage rates, while renters are less likely to do so. We further show that forward guidance shocks lead to similar differences between homeowners and renters. Our results suggest that homeowners pay attention to news on interest rates and adjust their expectations accordingly in a manner consistent with the intended effect of monetary policy. We characterize this empirical finding with a rational inattention model where mortgage payments create an incentive for homeowners to acquire information on monetary policy, unlike renters. This housing-driven endogenous attentiveness is the key mechanism behind the compelling empirical link among homeownership, attention, and the transmission of monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahn, Hie Joo & Xie, Shihan & Yang, Choongryul, 2024. "Effects of monetary policy on household expectations: The role of homeownership," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:147:y:2024:i:c:s0304393224000527
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2024.103599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393224000527
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2024.103599?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manuel Adelino & Antoinette Schoar & Felipe Severino, 2018. "Perception of House Price Risk and Homeownership," NBER Working Papers 25090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James D. Hamilton, 2008. "Daily Monetary Policy Shocks and the Delayed Response of New Home Sales," NBER Working Papers 14223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Francesco D'Acunto & Ulrike M. Malmendier & Michael Weber & Michael Weber, 2022. "What Do the Data Tell Us about Inflation Expectations?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9602, CESifo.
    4. Mathieu Pedemonte & Hiroshi Toma & Esteban Verdugo, 2023. "Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Inflation Expectations: The Role of Individual Experience," Working Papers 23-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    5. Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2022. "The impact of rising oil prices on U.S. inflation and inflation expectations in 2020–23," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    6. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2023. "Forward Guidance and Household Expectations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2131-2171.
    7. Claus, Edda & Nguyen, Viet Hoang, 2020. "Monetary policy shocks from the consumer perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 159-173.
    8. Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo & Arlene Wong, 2022. "State-Dependent Effects of Monetary Policy: The Refinancing Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 721-761, March.
    9. Bu, Chunya & Rogers, John & Wu, Wenbin, 2021. "A unified measure of Fed monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 331-349.
    10. Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2016. "The Power of Forward Guidance Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3133-3158, October.
    11. Michael Weber & Francesco D'Acunto & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2022. "The Subjective Inflation Expectations of Households and Firms: Measurement, Determinants, and Implications," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 157-184, Summer.
    12. Cantore, Cristiano & Freund, Lukas B., 2021. "Workers, capitalists, and the government: fiscal policy and income (re)distribution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 58-74.
    13. Gonzalo Paz-Pardo, 2024. "Homeownership and Portfolio Choice over the Generations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 207-237, January.
    14. Serafin Grundl & You Suk Kim, 2019. "Consumer mistakes and advertising: The case of mortgage refinancing," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 161-213, June.
    15. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2022. "Managing Households’ Expectations with Unconventional Policies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1597-1642.
    16. Ahn Hie Joo & Shao Ling, 2021. "The Cyclicality of On-the-Job Search Effort," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 185-220, January.
    17. Diegel, Max & Nautz, Dieter, 2021. "Long-term inflation expectations and the transmission of monetary policy shocks: Evidence from a SVAR analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    18. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2022. "Monetary Policy Communications and Their Effects on Household Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1537-1584.
    19. Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
    20. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Is the Phillips Curve Alive and Well after All? Inflation Expectations and the Missing Disinflation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 197-232, January.
    21. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2018. "High-Frequency Identification of Monetary Non-Neutrality: The Information Effect," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1283-1330.
    22. Sreyoshi Das & Camelia M Kuhnen & Stefan Nagel, 2020. "Socioeconomic Status and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(1), pages 395-432.
    23. Hamilton, James D., 2008. "Daily monetary policy shocks and new home sales," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1171-1190, October.
    24. Da Ke, 2021. "Who Wears the Pants? Gender Identity Norms and Intrahousehold Financial Decision‐Making," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1389-1425, June.
    25. Luis Armona & Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Home Price Expectations and Behaviour: Evidence from a Randomized Information Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1371-1410.
    26. Régis Barnichon & Christian Matthes, 2014. "Gaussian Mixture Approximations of Impulse Responses and the Nonlinear Effects of Monetary Shocks," Working Paper 16-8, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    27. Lamla, Michael J. & Vinogradov, Dmitri V., 2019. "Central bank announcements: Big news for little people?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 21-38.
    28. Toshihiko Mukoyama & Christina Patterson & Ayşegül Şahin, 2018. "Job Search Behavior over the Business Cycle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 190-215, January.
    29. Kryvtsov, Oleksiy & Petersen, Luba, 2021. "Central bank communication that works: Lessons from lab experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 760-780.
    30. Alan S. Blinder, 2008. "Talking about Monetary Policy: The Virtues (and Vices?) of Central Bank Communication," Working Papers 1048, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    31. Carlos Garriga & Finn E. Kydland & Roman Šustek, 2017. "Mortgages and Monetary Policy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3337-3375.
    32. Rupal Kamdar, 2019. "The Inattentive Consumer: Sentiment and Expectations," 2019 Meeting Papers 647, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    33. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2003. "Closing small open economy models," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 163-185, October.
    34. Carvalho, Carlos & Nechio, Fernanda & Tristão, Tiago, 2021. "Taylor rule estimation by OLS," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 140-154.
    35. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    36. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2025. "Rational Inattention and the Business Cycle Effects of Productivity and News Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 274-309, January.
    37. Bilbiie, Florin O., 2020. "The New Keynesian cross," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 90-108.
    38. Josh R. Stillwagon, 2018. "TIPS and the VIX: Spillovers from Financial Panic to Breakeven Inflation in an Automated, Nonlinear Modeling Framework," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(2), pages 218-235, April.
    39. Hassan Afrouzi & Choongryul Yang, 2021. "Dynamic Rational Inattention and the Phillips Curve," CESifo Working Paper Series 8840, CESifo.
    40. Theresa Kuchler & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Personal Experiences and Expectations about Aggregate Outcomes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(5), pages 2491-2542, October.
    41. Michael D. Bauer, 2015. "Inflation Expectations and the News," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(2), pages 1-40, March.
    42. Swanson, Eric T., 2021. "Measuring the effects of federal reserve forward guidance and asset purchases on financial markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 32-53.
    43. Garriga, Carlos & Kydland, Finn E. & Šustek, Roman, 2021. "MoNK: Mortgages in a New-Keynesian model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    44. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    45. Arlene Wong, 2021. "Refinancing and The Transmission of Monetary Policy to Consumption," Working Papers 2021-57, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    46. Ciccarelli, Matteo & García, Juan Angel & Montes-Galdón, Carlos, 2017. "Unconventional monetary policy and the anchoring of inflation expectations," Working Paper Series 1995, European Central Bank.
    47. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Rupal Kamdar, 2018. "The Formation of Expectations, Inflation, and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1447-1491, December.
    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. Guo, Junjie & Tang, Li & Xie, Shihan & Yin, Penghui, 2025. "Navigating fiscal fog: Household expectations in an uncertain fiscal environment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    2. Sarah Kiesl-Reiter & Melanie Lührmann & Jonathan Shaw & Joachim Winter, 2025. "The formation of subjective house price expectations: the role of perceptions and local economic conditions," IFS Working Papers W25/58, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Hie Joo Ahn & Shihan Xie, 2024. "Stock-driven Household Attention," Papers 2407.16141, arXiv.org.
    4. Michail, Nektarios A. & Louca, Kyriaki G., 2025. "Inflation expectations and house prices in the euro area," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 383-391.
    5. Volker Hahn & Michal Marencak, 2025. "Inflation Perceptions and Monetary Policy," Working and Discussion Papers WP 4/2025, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    6. Jaemin Jeong & Eunseong Ma & Choongryul Yang, 2025. "Attention-Dependent Monetary Transmission to Household Beliefs," Working papers 2025rwp-261, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    7. Tufan Ekici & Martin Geiger & Marios Zachariadis, 2024. "Understanding Expectations Formation for Hand-to-Mouth Households: Lessons from the Financial Crisis," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 05-2024, University of Cyprus Department of Economics, revised 05 Nov 2024.
    8. Piccolo, Jessica & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy, 2025. "Homeownership and Attention to Inflation: Evidence from Information Treatments," CEPR Discussion Papers 20087, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    9. Dietrich, Alexander M., 2024. "Consumption categories, household attention, and inflation expectations: Implications for optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    10. Siye Bae & Sangyup Choi & Sang-Hyun Kim & Myunghwan Andrew Lee & Myungkyu Shim, 2025. "Can We Anchor Macroeconomic Expectations Across Party Lines? Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," Working papers 2025rwp-255, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.

    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. Ángelo Gutiérrez-Daza, 2024. "Business Cycles when Consumers Learn by Shopping," Working Papers 2024-12, Banco de México.
    2. Lena Dräger & Michael J. Lamla, 2024. "Consumers' macroeconomic expectations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 427-451, April.
    3. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    4. Aktuğ, Emrehan & Rezghi, Abolfazl, 2025. "Asymmetric overreaction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    5. Francesco D'Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Maritta Paloviita & Michael Weber, 2020. "Effective Policy Communication: Targets versus Instruments," Working Papers 2020-148, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    6. Sheen, Jeffrey & Wang, Ben Zhe, 2023. "Do monetary condition news at the zero lower bound influence households’ expectations and readiness to spend?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    7. Eleonora Granziera & Vegard H. Larsen & Greta Meggiorini & Leonardo Melosi, 2025. "Speaking Of Inflation: The Influence Of Fed Speeches On Expectations," Working Papers No 07/2025, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    8. Christopher Roth & Sonja Settele & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 34-53, March.
    9. Massimiliano Marcellino & Dalibor Stevanovic, 2022. "The demand and supply of information about inflation," CIRANO Working Papers 2022s-27, CIRANO.
    10. Francesco D'Acunto & Janet Gao & Lu Liu & Kai Lu & Zhengwei Wang & Jun Yang, 2025. "Subjective Expectations and Financial Intermediation," CESifo Working Paper Series 11780, CESifo.
    11. Geiger, Martin & Gründler, Daniel & Scharler, Johann, 2023. "Monetary policy shocks and consumer expectations in the euro area," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    12. Bernardo Candia & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "Communication and the Beliefs of Economic Agents," NBER Working Papers 27800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Binder, Carola Conces, 2021. "Household expectations and the release of macroeconomic statistics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    14. Kaminska, Iryna & Mumtaz, Haroon & Šustek, Roman, 2021. "Monetary policy surprises and their transmission through term premia and expected interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 48-65.
    15. Andrew B. Martinez, 2020. "Extracting Information from Different Expectations," Working Papers 2020-008, The George Washington University, The Center for Economic Research.
    16. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    17. Baranowski, Paweł & Doryń, Wirginia & Łyziak, Tomasz & Stanisławska, Ewa, 2021. "Words and deeds in managing expectations: Empirical evidence from an inflation targeting economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 49-67.
    18. Dräger, Lena & Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas, 2025. "Political shocks and inflation expectations: Evidence from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    19. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2023. "Forward Guidance and Household Expectations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2131-2171.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:moneco:v:147:y:2024:i:c:s0304393224000527. 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/505566 .

    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.