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Indebtedness and spending: what happens when the music stops?

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  • Le Blanc, Julia
  • Lydon, Reamonn

Abstract

We analyse the effect of shocks to housing wealth and income before and after the Great Recession. We combine datasets containing information on expenditure, income, wealth and debt in a synthetic panel to understand how household indebtedness affects the response to income and wealth shocks. We find evidence for both a housing wealth effect and income shocks depressing household consumption during the crisis in Ireland. The long recovery of consumption is also related to high levels of indebtedness at the onset of the crisis. Households who entered the crisis with more debt are significantly more sensitive to changes in their income. In this way, household balance sheets can be an important amplification mechanism for aggregate shocks. JEL Classification: D14, D31, E21, H31

Suggested Citation

  • Le Blanc, Julia & Lydon, Reamonn, 2020. "Indebtedness and spending: what happens when the music stops?," Working Paper Series 2389, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20202389
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    Cited by:

    1. Kyriaki G. Louka & Nektarios A. Michail, 2022. "Missed Payments, Renegotiations, and Household Consumption," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 20(1), pages 31-50.
    2. David Cronin & Kieran McQuinn, 2023. "Labour Market Fluctuations and the Housing Net Worth Channel in the EU," De Economist, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 1-22, March.
    3. David Cronin & Kieran McQuinn, 2023. "Household Consumption and the Housing Net Worth Channel in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 54(2), pages 125-147.
    4. Apostolos Fasianos & Reamonn Lydon, 2022. "Do households with debt cut back their consumption more? New evidence from the United Kingdom," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 737-760, July.
    5. Arrigoni, Simone & Boyd, Laura & McIndoe-Calder, Tara, 2022. "Household Economic Resilience," Quarterly Bulletin Articles, Central Bank of Ireland, pages 88-113, October.
    6. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    expenditure; housing; income; wealth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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