IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/luk/wpaper/8525.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Housing Wealth, Financial Wealth, and Consumption: New Evidence from Micro Data - Revised

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Bostic
  • Stuart Gabriel
  • Gary Painter

Abstract

Fluctuations in the stock market and in house values over the course of recent years have led to renewed macroeconomic policy debate as regards the effects of financial and housing wealth in the determination of consumer spending. This research assembles a unique matched sample of household data from the Survey of Consumer Finance and the Consumer Expenditure Survey to estimate the consumption effects of financial and housing wealth. The micro-data permit numerous innovations in the assessment of wealth effects, including an analysis of the impact of wealth on both durable and nondurable consumption and a comparison of wealth effects as derive from gross versus after-debt measures of financial and housing wealth. Further, the research seeks to assess robustness of those estimates to deviations from trend and volatility in financial and housing wealth and among credit constrained and non-credit constrained households. Overall, research findings indicate relatively large housing wealth effects. Among homeowners, the housing wealth elasticities are estimated in the range of .06 over the 1989 - 2001 period. In marked contrast, the estimated elasticities of consumption spending with respect to financial wealth are smaller in magnitude and are in the range of .02. Further, the estimated wealth elasticities appear robust to deviations from trend and volatility in the wealth measures. Research findings support the hypothesized behavioral distinction in household consumption spending across durable versus non-durable categories. Consumption propensities also diverge sharply across the credit constrained and non-credit constrained households. Finally, there is little difference in wealth elasticities derived from measures of home equity versus house values. Research findings suggest the possibility of sizable reverse wealth effects. For example, a 10 percent decline in housing wealth from 2005 levels translates into a 1 percentage point decline in real GDP growth, a sizable reduction relative to the approximate 4 percent real GDP growth evidenced in recent years. Results of the analysis point to the sizable economy-wide risks associated with the recent retrenchment in house values.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Bostic & Stuart Gabriel & Gary Painter, 2008. "Housing Wealth, Financial Wealth, and Consumption: New Evidence from Micro Data - Revised," Working Paper 8525, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
  • Handle: RePEc:luk:wpaper:8525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://lusk.usc.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2008-1006.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriel, Stuart A. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2005. "Homeownership in the 1980s and 1990s: aggregate trends and racial gaps," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 101-127, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Levin, Laurence, 1998. "Are assets fungible?: Testing the behavioral theory of life-cycle savings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 59-83, July.
    4. Jonathan S. Skinner, 1996. "Is Housing Wealth a Sideshow?," NBER Chapters, in: Advances in the Economics of Aging, pages 241-272, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Martin Lettau & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2004. "Understanding Trend and Cycle in Asset Values: Reevaluating the Wealth Effect on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 276-299, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Hanno N. Lustig & Stijn G. Van Nieuwerburgh, 2005. "Housing Collateral, Consumption Insurance, and Risk Premia: An Empirical Perspective," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1167-1219, June.
    9. Piazzesi, Monika & Schneider, Martin & Tuzel, Selale, 2007. "Housing, consumption and asset pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 531-569, March.
    10. F. Thomas Juster & Joseph P. Lupton & James P. Smith & Frank Stafford, 2006. "The Decline in Household Saving and the Wealth Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(1), pages 20-27, February.
    11. Rodgers, Willard L, 1984. "An Evaluation of Statistical Matching," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(1), pages 91-102, January.
    12. Bostic, Raphael W & Surette, Brian J, 2001. "Have the Doors Opened Wider? Trends in Homeownership Rates by Race and Income," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 411-434, November.
    13. Glenn B. Canner & Karen E. Dynan & Wayne Passmore, 2002. "Mortgage refinancing in 2001 and early 2002," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 88(Dec), pages 469-481, December.
    14. Kul B. Bhatia, 1987. "Real Estate Assets and Consumer Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 437-444.
    15. Goodman, Allen C. & Kawai, Masahiro, 1982. "Permanent income, hedonic prices, and demand for housing: New evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 214-237, September.
    16. Engelhardt, Gary V., 1996. "House prices and home owner saving behavior," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3-4), pages 313-336, June.
    17. James M. Poterba & Andrew A. Samwick, 1995. "Stock Ownership Patterns, Stock Market Fluctuations, and Consumption," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 295-372.
    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. Umar Faruqui & Samah Torchani, 2012. "How Important Are Liquidity Constraints for Canadian Households? Evidence from Micro-Data," Discussion Papers 12-9, Bank of Canada.
    2. Claudio M. Loser & Drew Arnold, 2010. "Financial Wealth," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 2(1), pages 21-44, January.
    3. Claudio M. Loser & Drew Arnold, 2013. "Financial Wealth: An Estimate of the Buildup and Destruction of Wealth 2002–2012," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 5(1), pages 31-40, January.
    4. Norman Miller & Liang Peng & Michael Sklarz, 2011. "House Prices and Economic Growth," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 522-541, May.

    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. 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. Nancy van Beers & Michiel Bijlsma & Remco Mocking, 2015. "House Price Shocks and Household Savings: evidence from Dutch administrative data," CPB Discussion Paper 299, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    3. Sousa, Ricardo M., 2010. "Consumption, (dis)aggregate wealth, and asset returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 606-622, September.
    4. 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.
    5. William Hardin & Sheng Guo, 2012. "Wealth, Composition, Housing, Income, and Consumption," Working Papers 1201, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    6. Monica Paiella, 2009. "The Stock Market, Housing And Consumer Spending: A Survey Of The Evidence On Wealth Effects," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 947-973, December.
    7. Sheng Guo & William Hardin, 2014. "Wealth, Composition, Housing, Income and Consumption," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 221-243, February.
    8. Nancy van Beers & Michiel Bijlsma & Remco Mocking, 2015. "House Price Shocks and Household Savings: evidence from Dutch administrative data," CPB Discussion Paper 299.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Swamy, Vighneswara, 2017. "Wealth Effects and Macroeconomic Dynamics – Evidence from Indian Economy," MPRA Paper 76836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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.
    11. Norman Miller & Liang Peng & Michael Sklarz, 2011. "House Prices and Economic Growth," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 522-541, May.
    12. 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.
    13. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jiri Slacalek, 2011. "How Large Are Housing and Financial Wealth Effects? A New Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 55-79, February.
    14. 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.
    15. Lingxiao Zhao & Gregory Burge, 2017. "Housing Wealth, Property Taxes, and Labor Supply among the Elderly," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 227-263.
    16. Janine Aron & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Housing Wealth, Credit Conditions and Consumption," CSAE Working Paper Series 2006-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    17. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2015. "The out-of-sample forecasting performance of nonlinear models of regional housing prices in the US," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(22), pages 2259-2277, May.
    18. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio, 2015. "Wealth shocks, unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-41.
    19. Vivien Burrows, 2018. "The Impact of House Prices on Consumption in the UK: a New Perspective," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(337), pages 92-123, January.
    20. 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.

    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:luk:wpaper:8525. 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: Chris Steins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lcuscus.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.