IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bca/bocawp/18-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Home Equity Extraction and the Boom-Bust Cycle in Consumption and Residential Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoqing Zhou

Abstract

The consumption boom-bust cycle in the 2000s coincided with large fluctuations in the volume of home equity borrowing. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I show that homeowners largely borrowed for residential investment and not consumption. I rationalize this empirical finding using a calibrated two-goods, multiple-assets, heterogeneous-agent life-cycle model with borrowing frictions. The model replicates key features of the household-level and aggregate data. The model offers an alternative explanation of the consumption boom-bust cycle. This cycle is caused by large fluctuations in the number of borrowers and hence in total home equity borrowing, even though the fraction of borrowed funds spent on consumption is small.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoqing Zhou, 2018. "Home Equity Extraction and the Boom-Bust Cycle in Consumption and Residential Investment," Staff Working Papers 18-6, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:18-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/swp2018-6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Geng, 2009. "Transaction costs and consumption," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1263-1277, June.
    2. Hui Chen & Michael Michaux & Nikolai Roussanov, 2020. "Houses as ATMs: Mortgage Refinancing and Macroeconomic Uncertainty," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(1), pages 323-375, February.
    3. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    4. Arlene Wong, 2016. "Population aging and the transmission of monetary policy to consumption," 2016 Meeting Papers 716, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Davis, Morris A. & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2007. "The price and quantity of residential land in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2595-2620, November.
    6. Martin Beraja & Andreas Fuster & Erik Hurst & Joseph Vavra, 2017. "Regional Heterogeneity and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 23270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ortalo-Magne, Francois & Rady, Sven, 1999. "Boom in, bust out: Young households and the housing price cycle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 755-766, April.
    8. Iacoviello, Matteo & Pavan, Marina, 2013. "Housing and debt over the life cycle and over the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 221-238.
    9. Juster, F. Thomas & Smith, James P. & Stafford, Frank, 1999. "The measurement and structure of household wealth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 253-275, June.
    10. Fang Yang, 2009. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: How Different is Housing?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 423-443, July.
    11. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    12. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2011. "House Prices, Home Equity-Based Borrowing, and the US Household Leverage Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2132-2156, August.
    13. Greg Kaplan & Kurt Mitman & Giovanni L. Violante, 2020. "The Housing Boom and Bust: Model Meets Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3285-3345.
    14. Hurst, Erik & Stafford, Frank, 2004. "Home Is Where the Equity Is: Mortgage Refinancing and Household Consumption," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(6), pages 985-1014, December.
    15. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Christopher Palmer, 2016. "How Quantitative Easing Works: Evidence on the Refinancing Channel," NBER Working Papers 22638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Pfeffer, Fabian T. & Schoeni, Robert F. & Kennickell, Arthur & Andreski, Patricia, 2016. "Measuring wealth and wealth inequality: Comparing two U.S. surveys," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 2, pages 103-120.
    17. Aditya Aladangady, 2014. "Homeowner Balance Sheets and Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-98, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Daniel H. Cooper, 2009. "Did easy credit lead to economic peril?: home equity borrowing and household behavior in the early 2000s," Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    19. David Berger & Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni & Joseph Vavra, 2018. "House Prices and Consumer Spending," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1502-1542.
    20. Neil Bhutta & Benjamin J. Keys, 2016. "Interest Rates and Equity Extraction during the Housing Boom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1742-1774, July.
    21. Patricia Andreski & Geng Li & Mehmet Zahid Samancioglu & Robert Schoeni, 2014. "Estimates of Annual Consumption Expenditures and Its Major Components in the PSID in Comparison to the CE," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 132-135, May.
    22. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Home Equity Extraction and the Boom-Bust Cycle in Consumption and Residential Investment
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2018-02-27 03:26:39

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. John Beshears & James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian & William L. Skimmyhorn, 2022. "Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 403-447, February.
    2. Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2020. "A quantitative evaluation of the Housing Provident Fund program in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Carlos Garriga & Aaron Hedlund, 2019. "Crises in the Housing Market: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Lessons," Working Papers 2019-33, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

    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. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    2. Alina Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike Steins, 2025. "The Distribution of Household Debt in the United States, 1950-2022," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 57, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Davis, Morris A. & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2015. "Housing, Finance, and the Macroeconomy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 753-811, Elsevier.
    5. Martin Beraja & Andreas Fuster & Erik Hurst & Joseph Vavra, 2019. "Regional Heterogeneity and the Refinancing Channel of Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 109-183.
    6. Albanesi, Stefania & DeGiorgi, Giacomo & Nosal, Jaromir, 2022. "Credit growth and the financial crisis: A new narrative," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 118-139.
    7. Corina Boar & Denis Gorea & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2022. "Liquidity Constraints in the U.S. Housing Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(3), pages 1120-1154.
    8. Alina K. Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Modigliani Meets Minsky: Inequality, Debt, and Financial Fragility in America, 1950-2016," Working Papers Series inetwp124, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    9. Xiaoqing Zhou, 2022. "Mortgage borrowing and the boom-bust cycle in consumption and residential investment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 244-268, April.
    10. Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2021. "Debt relief and slow recovery: A decade after Lehman," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1036-1059.
    11. Neil Bhutta & Benjamin J. Keys, 2016. "Interest Rates and Equity Extraction during the Housing Boom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1742-1774, July.
    12. Alina Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike Steins, 2025. "The Distribution of Household Debt in the United States, 1950-2022," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 57, July.
    13. Eunseong Ma & Sarah Zubairy, 2021. "Homeownership And Housing Transitions: Explaining The Demographic Composition," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(2), pages 599-638, May.
    14. Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2018. "Mortgage Market Design: Lessons from the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(1 (Spring), pages 429-513.
    15. Mølbak Ingholt, Marcus, 2022. "Multiple Credit Constraints and Time-Varying Macroeconomic Dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    16. Sheng Guo, 2022. "What Did Homeowners Do with Home Equity Borrowing? Contemporaneous and Long‐Term Effects," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(8), pages 2445-2475, December.
    17. Joshua Abel & Andreas Fuster, 2021. "How Do Mortgage Refinances Affect Debt, Default, and Spending? Evidence from HARP," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 254-291, April.
    18. repec:bin:bpeajo:v:49:y:2019:i:2018-01:p:429-513 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    20. Pancrazi, Roberto & Pietrunti, Mario, 2019. "Natural expectations and home equity extraction," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    21. Katya Kartashova & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2020. "How Do Mortgage Rate Resets Affect Consumer Spending and Debt Repayment? Evidence from Canadian Consumers," Staff Working Papers 20-18, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Credit and credit aggregates; Economic models; Housing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bca:bocawp:18-6. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bocgvca.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.