IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boe/boeewp/0919.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The consumption response to borrowing constraints in the mortgage market

Author

Listed:
  • Tracey, Belinda

    (Bank of England)

  • Van Horen, Neeltje

    (Bank of England)

Abstract

This paper shows that relaxing borrowing constraints positively affects household consumption in addition to stimulating housing market activity. We focus on the UK Help-to-Buy (HTB) program, which provided a sudden relaxation of the down payment constraint by facilitating home purchases with only a 5% down payment. Our research design exploits geographic variation in exposure to HTB and uses administrative data on mortgages and car sales in combination with household survey data. We estimate that the program increased total home purchases by 11%, and the increase was driven almost entirely by first-time and young buyers. Regions that were more exposed to the program experienced a rise in non-durable consumption unrelated to the home and in loan-financed car purchases, in addition to an increase in home-related expenditures. These results are independent of changes in regional house prices. Our findings point to a further link between the housing market and household consumption that does not operate through the home purchase and housing wealth channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Tracey, Belinda & Van Horen, Neeltje, 2021. "The consumption response to borrowing constraints in the mortgage market," Bank of England working papers 919, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:0919
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2021/the-consumption-response-to-borrowing-constraints-in-the-mortgage-market.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bostic, Raphael & Gabriel, Stuart & Painter, Gary, 2009. "Housing wealth, financial wealth, and consumption: New evidence from micro data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 79-89, January.
    2. Peter Linneman & Susan Wachter, 1989. "The Impacts of Borrowing Constraints on Homeownership," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 17(4), pages 389-402, December.
    3. Gregorio Caetano & Miguel Palacios & Harry A. Patrinos, 2019. "Measuring Aversion to Debt: An Experiment Among Student Loan Candidates," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 117-131, March.
    4. Orazio Attanasio & Andrew Leicester & Matthew Wakefield, 2011. "Do House Prices Drive Consumption Growth? The Coincident Cycles Of House Prices And Consumption In The Uk," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 399-435, June.
    5. Karen E. Dynan & Wendy Edelberg & Michael G. Palumbo, 2009. "The Effects of Population Aging on the Relationship among Aggregate Consumption, Saving, and Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 380-386, May.
    6. Carozzi, Felipe & Hilber, Christian A.L. & Yu, Xiaolun, 2024. "On the economic impacts of mortgage credit expansion policies: Evidence from help to buy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    7. François Ortalo-Magné & Sven Rady, 2006. "Housing Market Dynamics: On the Contribution of Income Shocks and Credit Constraints ," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 459-485.
    8. Jack Favilukis & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2017. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Housing Wealth, Housing Finance, and Limited Risk Sharing in General Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 140-223.
    9. James S. Cloyne & Paolo Surico, 2017. "Household Debt and the Dynamic Effects of Income Tax Changes," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-81.
    10. Giovanni Favara & Jean Imbs, 2015. "Credit Supply and the Price of Housing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 958-992, March.
    11. Campbell, John Y. & Cocco, Joao F., 2007. "How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 591-621, April.
    12. Jonathan A. Parker & Nicholas S. Souleles & David S. Johnson & Robert McClelland, 2013. "Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2530-2553, October.
    13. Nicholas S. Souleles & Jonathan A. Parker & David S. Johnson, 2006. "Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1589-1610, December.
    14. Case Karl E. & Quigley John M. & Shiller Robert J., 2005. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus the Housing Market," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-34, May.
    15. Efraim Benmelech & Adam Guren & Brian T. Melzer, 2017. "Making the House a Home: The Stimulative Effect of Home Purchases on Consumption and Investment," NBER Working Papers 23570, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Daniel J. Wilson, 2012. "Fiscal Spending Jobs Multipliers: Evidence from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 251-282, August.
    17. John D. Benjamin & Peter Chinloy & G. Donald Jud, 2004. "Why do Households Concentrate Their Wealth in Housing?," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 26(4), pages 329-344.
    18. Pedro Gete & Michael Reher, 2018. "Mortgage Supply and Housing Rents," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(12), pages 4884-4911.
    19. Kaplan, Greg & Mitman, Kurt & Violante, Giovanni L., 2020. "Non-durable consumption and housing net worth in the Great Recession: Evidence from easily accessible data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. Jason Allen & Robert Clark & Jean-François Houde, 2014. "Price Dispersion in Mortgage Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 377-416, September.
    23. Agnes Kovacs & May Rostom & Philip Bunn, 2018. "Consumption Response to Aggregate Shocks and the Role of Leverage," Discussion Papers 1820, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    24. Kanishka Misra & Paolo Surico, 2014. "Consumption, Income Changes, and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Two Fiscal Stimulus Programs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 84-106, October.
    25. James Cloyne & Clodomiro Ferreira & Paolo Surico, 2020. "Monetary Policy when Households have Debt: New Evidence on the Transmission Mechanism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 102-129.
    26. Benetton, Matteo & Bracke, Philippe & Garbarino, Nicola, 2018. "Down payment and mortgage rates: evidence from equity loans," Bank of England working papers 713, Bank of England.
    27. Daniel Greenwald, 2016. "The Mortgage Credit Channel of Macroeconomic Transmission," 2016 Meeting Papers 1551, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    28. Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2021. "The Sensitivity of Housing Demand to Financing Conditions: Evidence from a Survey," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 231-265, February.
    29. Browning, Martin & Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1985. "A Profitable Approach to Labor Supply and Commodity Demands over the Life-Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 503-543, May.
    30. Daniel Greenwald & Adam Guren, 2019. "Do Credit Conditions Move House Prices?," 2019 Meeting Papers 1334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    31. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126.
    32. Donald R. Haurin & Patric H. Hendershott & Susan M. Wachter, 1996. "Borrowing Constraints and the Tenure Choice of Young Households," NBER Working Papers 5630, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. 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.
    34. 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.
    35. Michael Thomas & Brian Joseph Gillespie & Nik Lomax, 2019. "Variations in migration motives over distance," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(38), pages 1097-1110.
    36. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Benjamin J. Keys & Tomasz Piskorski & Rodney Ramcharan & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2017. "Interest Rate Pass-Through: Mortgage Rates, Household Consumption, and Voluntary Deleveraging," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3550-3588, November.
    37. Engelhardt, Gary V, 1996. "Consumption, Down Payments, and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(2), pages 255-271, May.
    38. 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.
    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. Carozzi, Felipe & Hilber, Christian A.L. & Yu, Xiaolun, 2024. "On the economic impacts of mortgage credit expansion policies: Evidence from help to buy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Stefano Colonnello & Mariela Dal Borgo, 2024. "Raising Household Leverage: Evidence from Co-Financed Mortgages," Working Papers 2024: 01, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    3. Mokas, Dimitris & Giuliodori, Massimo, 2023. "Effects of LTV announcements in EU economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Jin Cao & Chao Cui & Valeriya Dinger & Martin B. Holm & Shulong Kang, 2022. "Identifying the depreciation rate of durables from marginal spending responses," Working Paper 2022/1, Norges Bank.

    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. Adam M Guren & Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2021. "Housing Wealth Effects: The Long View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(2), pages 669-707.
    3. Yunho Cho & James Morley & Aarti Singh, 2024. "Did marginal propensities to consume change with the housing boom and bust?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 174-199, January.
    4. Cho, Yunho & Morley, James & Singh, Aarti, 2019. "Marginal propensities to consume before and after the Great Recession," Working Papers 2019-11, University of Sydney, School of Economics, revised Sep 2021.
    5. Guerrieri, V. & Uhlig, H., 2016. "Housing and Credit Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1427-1496, Elsevier.
    6. Simone Salotti, 2012. "Wealth Effects in the US: Evidence from the Combination of Two Surveys," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 67-98.
    7. Mairead Roiste & Apostolos Fasianos & Robert Kirkby & Fang Yao, 2021. "Are Housing Wealth Effects Asymmetric in Booms and Busts?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 578-628, May.
    8. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2014. "House Price Gains and U.S. Household Spending from 2002 to 2006," NBER Working Papers 20152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. 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.
    10. James Cloyne & Clodomiro Ferreira & Paolo Surico, 2020. "Monetary Policy when Households have Debt: New Evidence on the Transmission Mechanism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 102-129.
    11. 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.
    12. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Stock Market Returns and Consumption," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 3175-3219, December.
    13. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca, 2022. "House prices, housing wealth and financial well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    14. Fergus Cumming & Paul Hubert, 2019. "The Role of Households' Borrowing Constraints in the Transmission of Monetary Policy This paper investigates how the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy depends on the distribution of ," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2019-20, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    15. 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.
    16. Fergus Cumming & Paul Hubert, 2019. "The role of households' borrowing constraints in the transmission of monetary policy," Sciences Po publications 20/2019, Sciences Po.
    17. Paolo Surico & Riccardo Trezzi, 2015. "Consumer Spending and Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Housing Tax Experiment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-57, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Yavuz Arslan & Bulent Guler & Burhan Kuruscu, 2020. "Credit supply driven boom-bust cycles," BIS Working Papers 885, Bank for International Settlements.
    19. 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.
    20. Adam M. Guren & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Timothy J. Mcquade, 2021. "Mortgage Design in an Equilibrium Model of the Housing Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 113-168, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Borrowing constraints; consumption; housing market; mortgage market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • R28 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Government Policy

    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:boe:boeewp:0919. 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: Digital Media Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.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.