IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dnb/dnbwpp/026.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: evidence from a large program

Author

Listed:
  • Nuno Martins
  • Ernesto Villanueva

Abstract

The responsiveness of long-term household debt to the interest rate is a crucial parameter for assessing the effectiveness of public policies aimed at promoting specific types of saving. This paper estimates the effect of a reform of a large program that subsidized mortgage interest rates on long-term household debt. The reform established a ceiling in the price of the house that could be Þnanced through the program, and provides plau- sibly exogenous variation in incentives. Using a unique dataset of matched household survey data and administrative records of debt, we document that loss of access to the subsidy decreased the probability of signing a new loan.

Suggested Citation

  • Nuno Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2005. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: evidence from a large program," DNB Working Papers 026, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dnb.nl/binaries/Working%20Paper%2026_tcm46-146683.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gruber, Jon & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The elasticity of taxable income: evidence and implications," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-32, April.
    2. James M. Poterba, 1983. "Tax Subsidies to Owner-occupied Housing: An Asset Market Approach," Working papers 339, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    3. Gervais, Martin, 2002. "Housing taxation and capital accumulation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1461-1489, October.
    4. Maite Martínez-Granado & Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2002. "The decisions of Spanish youth: A cross-section study," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(2), pages 305-330.
    5. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2003. "Tax incentives and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1779-1799, August.
    6. Orazio P. Attanasio & Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Ekaterini Kyriazidou, 2008. "Credit Constraints In The Market For Consumer Durables: Evidence From Micro Data On Car Loans," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 401-436, May.
    7. Robert J.Gary-Bobo & Sophie Larribeau, 2003. "The bank's market power and the interest rate elasticity of demand for housing: an econometric discrimination on french mortgage data," THEMA Working Papers 2003-01, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    8. David B. Gross & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2002. "Do Liquidity Constraints and Interest Rates Matter for Consumer Behavior? Evidence from Credit Card Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(1), pages 149-185.
    9. Rob Alessie & Stefan Hochguertel & Guglielmo Weber, 2005. "Consumer Credit: Evidence From Italian Micro Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 144-178, March.
    10. Jacob L. Vigdor, 2004. "Liquidity Constraints and Housing Prices: Theory and Evidence from the VA Mortgage," NBER Working Papers 10611, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Angrist, Joshua D, 2001. "Estimations of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Dummy Endogenous Regressors: Simple Strategies for Empirical Practice," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 2-16, January.
    12. Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 180-212, August.
    13. Gary-Bobo, Robert J. & Larribeau, Sophie, 2003. "The Bank's Market Power and the Interest Rate Elasticity of Demand for Housing: An Econometric Study of Discrimination on French Mortgage Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 3745, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Bernheim, B. Douglas, 2002. "Taxation and saving," Handbook of Public Economics,in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1173-1249 Elsevier.
    15. Henderson, J Vernon & Ioannides, Yannis M, 1983. "A Model of Housing Tenure Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 98-113, March.
    16. Devereux, Michael P. & Lanot, Gauthier, 2003. "Measuring tax incidence: an application to mortgage provision in the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1747-1778, August.
    17. Gary V. Engelhardt, 1996. "Tax Subsidies and Household Saving: Evidence from Canada," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(4), pages 1237-1268.
    18. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2002. "Incentives to Borrow and the Demand for Mortgage Debt: An Analysis of Tax Reforms," CSEF Working Papers 90, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    19. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    20. James M. Poterba, 2001. "Taxation and Portfolio Structure: Issues and Implications," NBER Working Papers 8223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale, 2000. "The Effects of 401(k) Plans on Household Wealth: Differences Across Earnings Groups," NBER Working Papers 8032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    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. Meng, Xianming & Hoang, Nam T. & Siriwardana, Mahinda, 2013. "The determinants of Australian household debt: A macro level study," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 80-90.
    2. Nuno Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2006. "Does limited access to mortgage debt explain why young adults live with their parents?," Working Papers 0628, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage.
    3. Herrala, Risto & Kauko, Karlo, 2007. "Household loan loss risk in Finland : estimations and simulations with micro data," Research Discussion Papers 5/2007, Bank of Finland.
    4. Martins, Nuno C. & Villanueva, Ernesto, 2006. "The impact of mortgage interest-rate subsidies on household borrowing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1601-1623, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer Borrowing; Mortgage interest rate subsidies; Quasi-natural;

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

    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:dnb:dnbwpp:026. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Rob Vet). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dnbgvnl.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.