IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/6920.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Housing Wealth isn't Wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Buiter, Willem

Abstract

A fall in house prices due to a change in fundamental value redistributes wealth from those long housing (for whom the fundamental value of the house they own exceeds the present discounted value of their planned future consumption of housing services) to those short housing. In a representative agent model and in the Yaari-Blanchard OLG model used in the paper, there is no pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices if this represents a change in fundamental value. There is a pure wealth effect on consumption from a change in house prices if this reflects a change in the speculative bubble component of house prices. Two other channels through which house prices can affect aggregate consumption are (1) redistribution effects if the marginal propensity to spend out of wealth differs between those long housing and those short housing and (2) collateral or credit effects due to the collateralisability of housing wealth and the non-collateralisability of human wealth. A decline in house prices reduces the scope for mortgage equity withdrawal. For given sequences of future after-tax labour income and interest rates, this may depress consumption in the short run while boosting it in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Buiter, Willem, 2008. "Housing Wealth isn't Wealth," CEPR Discussion Papers 6920, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP6920
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brayton, Flint & Levin, Andrew & Lyon, Ralph & Williams, John C., 1997. "The evolution of macro models at the Federal Reserve Board," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 43-81, December.
    2. Buiter, Willem H. & Pesenti, Paolo A., 1990. "Rational Speculative Bubbles In An Exchange Rate Target Zone," Economic Research Papers 268490, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Vladimir Klyuev & Paul Mills, 2007. "Is Housing Wealth an “ATM”? The Relationship Between Household Wealth, Home Equity Withdrawal, and Saving Rates," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 539-561, July.
    5. Iacoviello, Matteo, 2004. "Consumption, house prices, and collateral constraints: a structural econometric analysis," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 304-320, December.
    6. Flint Brayton & Peter A. Tinsley, 1996. "A guide to FRB/US: a macroeconomic model of the United States," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 96-42, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Khandani, Amir E. & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C., 2013. "Systemic risk and the refinancing ratchet effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 29-45.
    8. Buiter, Willem H., 1989. "Debt neutrality, Professor Vickrey and Henry George's 'single tax'," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 43-47.
    9. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2), pages 299-362.
    10. Buiter, Willem H, 1988. "Death, Birth, Productivity Growth and Debt Neutrality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 279-293, June.
    11. Casey Mulligan & Luke Threinen, 2008. "Market Responses to the Panic of 2008," NBER Working Papers 14446, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Edelstein, Robert H. & Lum, Sau Kim, 2004. "House prices, wealth effects, and the Singapore macroeconomy," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 342-367, December.
    13. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    14. Mr. Vladimir Klyuev & Mr. Paul S. Mills, 2006. "Is Housing Wealth An 'ATM'? the Relationship Between Household Wealth, Home Equity withdrawal, and Saving Rates," IMF Working Papers 2006/162, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Case, Karl E. & Quigley, John M. & Shiller, Robert J., 2001. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus The Housing Market," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt44k6g6vx, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    16. 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.
    17. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jirka Slacalek, 2006. "How Large Is the Housing Wealth Effect? A New Approach," NBER Working Papers 12746, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-224, January.
    19. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    20. Flint Brayton & Eileen Mauskopf & David L. Reifschneider & Peter A. Tinsley & John Williams, 1997. "The role of expectations in the FRB/US macroeconomic model," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 83(Apr), pages 227-245, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Housing and the monetary transmission mechanism," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 359-413.
    2. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "\"Housing and the monetary transmission mechanism,\" Finance and Economics Discussion Series Working Paper: a speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Economic Symposium, Jackson ," Speech 312, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Ebner, André, 2013. "A micro view on home equity withdrawal and its determinants: Evidence from Dutch households," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 321-337.
    4. Duca, John V. & Muellbauer, John & Murphy, Anthony, 2010. "Housing markets and the financial crisis of 2007-2009: Lessons for the future," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 203-217, December.
    5. Fabian Lindner, 2013. "The Housing Wealth Effect on Consumption Reconsidered," IMK Working Paper 115-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    6. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    7. Chen, Nan-Kuang & Chen, Shiu-Sheng & Chou, Yu-Hsi, 2010. "House prices, collateral constraint, and the asymmetric effect on consumption," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 26-37, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Renée A. Fry & Vance L. Martin & Nicholas Voukelatos, 2010. "Overvaluation in Australian Housing and Equity Markets: Wealth Effects or Monetary Policy?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(275), pages 465-485, December.
    10. Jörg Bibow, 2010. "Alternative Strategien der Budgetkonsolidierung in Österreich nach der Rezession," IMK Studies 03-2010, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    11. John N. Muellbauer, 2007. "Housing, credit and consumer expenditure," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 267-334.
    12. Cynthia A. Bansa & Martha A. Starr, 2011. "Distributional costs of the housing-price bust," Working Papers 2011-04, American University, Department of Economics.
    13. Christopher Anderson & Eli Beracha, 2012. "Frothy Housing Markets and Local Stock-Price Movements," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 326-346, August.
    14. Atalay, Kadir & Whelan, Stephen & Yates, Judith, 2013. "Housing Wealth and Household Consumption: New Evidence from Australia and Canada," Working Papers 2013-04, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    15. Kajuth, Florian, 2010. "The role of liquidity constraints in the response of monetary policy to house prices," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 230-242, December.
    16. John Muellbauer, 2012. "When is a Housing Market Overheated Enough to Threaten Stability?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    17. Kajuth, Florian & Knetsch, Thomas A. & Pinkwart, Nicolas, 2013. "Assessing house prices in Germany: Evidence from an estimated stock-flow model using regional data," Discussion Papers 46/2013, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2010. "Unit Roots and Structural Change: An Application to US House-Price Indices," Working papers 2010-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2010.
    19. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca, 2022. "House prices, housing wealth and financial well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Chau Do & Irina Paley, 2012. "Altruism from the house: the impact of home equity on charitable giving," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 375-393, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    House prices; Speculative bubbles; Wealth effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

    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:cpr:ceprdp:6920. 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://www.cepr.org .

    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.