IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/94539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Unequal Effect of Interest Rates by Race, Gender

Author

Abstract

Household spending typically falls as interest rates rise, but the responses vary by race and gender. Data show that households with mortgages headed by white women cut their spending on durable goods about a quarter percentage point in the three years following a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates. This is a much larger reduction than for households with mortgages headed by white men or Black men or women. The differences highlight the challenge of understanding how policy interest rate changes affect a diverse population.

Suggested Citation

  • Aina Puig, 2022. "The Unequal Effect of Interest Rates by Race, Gender," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2022(19), pages 1-5, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:94539
    Note: This Economic Letter was developed through the San Francisco Fed’s Unlocking Our Potential essay contest for graduate students.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/el2022-19.pdf
    File Function: Full text - article PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/our-district/about/sf-fed-blog/student-essay-contest-unlocking-our-potential/
    File Function: Essay Contest: Unlocking Our Potential
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephanie Seguino & James Heintz, 2012. "Monetary Tightening and the Dynamics of US Race and Gender Stratification," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 603-638, July.
    2. James Cloyne & Clodomiro Ferreira & Paolo Surico, 2020. "Monetary Policy when Households have Debt: New Evidence on the Transmission Mechanism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 102-129.
    3. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kueng, Lorenz & Silvia, John, 2017. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 70-89.
    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. Asger Lau Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Mia Jørgensen & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Monetary policy and inequality," Economics Working Papers 1761, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2021.
    2. Shiou‐Yen Chu, 2022. "Markups, inequality and monetary‐fiscal policies," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(4), pages 367-395, September.
    3. Mehdi El Herradi & Aurélien Leroy, 2021. "Monetary Policy and the Top 1%: Evidence from a Century of Modern Economic History," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(71), pages 1-41, December.
    4. Mehdi El Herradi & Aurélien Leroy, 2020. "Monetary policy and the top one percent: Evidence from a century of modern economic history," Working Papers halshs-03080162, HAL.
    5. Tzamourani, Panagiota, 2021. "The interest rate exposure of euro area households," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Cumming, Fergus, 2018. "Mortgages, cash-flow shocks and local employment," Bank of England working papers 773, Bank of England.
    7. Davide Melcangi & Vincent Sterk, 2020. "Stock Market Participation, Inequality, and Monetary Policy," Staff Reports 932, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Jérôme Creel & Mehdi El Herradi, 2024. "Income inequality and monetary policy in the euro area," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 332-355, January.
    9. Johnson Worlanyo Ahiadorme, 2022. "Monetary policy transmission and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1555-1585, August.
    10. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2020. "The effects of quasi-random monetary experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 22-40.
    11. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2024. "Does Monetary Policy Affect Income Inequality in the Euro Area?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(1), pages 35-80, February.
    12. Martin Groiss & Nicolas Syrichas, 2025. "Monetary Policy, Property Prices and Rents: Evidence from Local Housing Markets," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0058, Berlin School of Economics.
    13. Bunn, Philip & Pugh, Alice & Yeates, Chris, 2018. "The distributional impact of monetary policy easing in the UK between 2008 and 2014," Bank of England working papers 720, Bank of England.
    14. Cantore, Cristiano & Ferroni, Filippo & Mumtaz, Hroon & Theophilopoulou, Angeliki, 2022. "A tail of labour supply and a tale of monetary policy," Bank of England working papers 989, Bank of England.
    15. Andrea Colciago & Anna Samarina & Jakob de Haan, 2019. "Central Bank Policies And Income And Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 1199-1231, September.
    16. Pavel Vikharev & Anna Novak & Andrei Shulgin, 2023. "Inequality and monetary policy: THRANK model," Bank of Russia Working Paper Series wps113, Bank of Russia.
    17. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2019. "Does monetary policy affect income inequality in the euro area?," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 61, Bank of Lithuania.
    18. Mikołaj Raczyński, 2022. "Monetary policy and economic inequality: a literature review," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 53(2), pages 231-278.
    19. Luzie Thiel, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Inequality: A Two-way Relation," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202304, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    20. Cumming, Fergus, 2022. "Mortgage cash-flows and employment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    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:fip:fedfel:94539. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.