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The Interaction of Mortgage Credit and Housing Prices in the US

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  • Fabian Lindner

Abstract

This paper looks at the relation between mortgage credit and housing values. It has become conventional wisdom in policy circles that credit growth led to the housing bubble in the US. However, this statement has not been empirically tested as of yet. The paper uses the Johansen procedure to estimate a long run relationship between mortgage credit and housing prices between 1984 and 2012 and analyzes the interactions between the variables. To this effect, two models with two different housing price variables are estimated. It is found that mortgage credit is weakly exogenous. Impulse-response functions, variance decompositions and out of sample forecast also show that mortgage credit drives housing prices and not vice versa. The paper also looks at the effect of short-term and long-term interest rates and does not find important influences of both on housing prices or mortgage credit. The role of monetary policy is not likely to have been very strong in the built-up of the housing bubble.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabian Lindner, 2014. "The Interaction of Mortgage Credit and Housing Prices in the US," IMK Working Paper 133-2014, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:imk:wpaper:133-2014
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    Cited by:

    1. Kelly, Robert & McCann, Fergal & O’Toole, Conor, 2018. "Credit conditions, macroprudential policy and house prices," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 153-167.
    2. Ruben Tarne & Dirk Bezemer & Thomas Theobald, 2021. "The Effect of borrower-specific Loan-to-Value policies on household debt, wealth inequality and consumption volatility," IMK Working Paper 212-2021, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    3. Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & Mc Inerney, Niall, 2014. "The Role of Credit in the Housing Market," Papers WP495, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    4. Tarne, Ruben & Bezemer, Dirk & Theobald, Thomas, 2022. "The effect of borrower-specific loan-to-value policies on household debt, wealth inequality and consumption volatility: An agent-based analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Dreger, Christian & Gerdesmeier, Dieter & Roffia, Barbara, 2020. "The impact of credit for house price overvaluations in the euro area: Evidence from threshold models," MPRA Paper 99523, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing Prices; Mortgage Markets; Monetary Policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

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