IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/empiri/v42y2015i2p391-412.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality and household debt: a panel cointegration analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Mathias Klein

Abstract

This study investigates whether there exists an empirical long-run relationship between income inequality and household debt. By using panel cointegration techniques, I find that inequality and leverage are cointegrated of order one and therefore share a common trending relation. Removing this trend by first differencing the series leads to biased inference. The results are robust to different indicators for household debt and alternative inequality measures. In the long-run, a 1 % point increase in inequality is associated with an increase in household credit by 2–6 %, depending on the inequality measure used. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Mathias Klein, 2015. "Inequality and household debt: a panel cointegration analysis," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 391-412, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:empiri:v:42:y:2015:i:2:p:391-412
    DOI: 10.1007/s10663-015-9281-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10663-015-9281-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10663-015-9281-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    2. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    3. Breitung, Jörg & Pesaran, Mohammad Hashem, 2005. "Unit roots and cointegration in panels," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,42, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    5. Chang, Yoosoon, 2004. "Bootstrap unit root tests in panels with cross-sectional dependency," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 263-293, June.
    6. Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2011. "Economic crises and Inequality," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2011-06, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    7. Andrew Leigh, 2007. "How Closely Do Top Income Shares Track Other Measures of Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(524), pages 619-633, November.
    8. Bordo, Michael D. & Meissner, Christopher M., 2012. "Does inequality lead to a financial crisis?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2147-2161.
    9. Joakim Westerlund, 2007. "Testing for Error Correction in Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(6), pages 709-748, December.
    10. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    11. Michael Kumhof & Romain Rancière & Pablo Winant, 2015. "Inequality, Leverage, and Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1217-1245, March.
    12. Tuomas Malinen, 2012. "Estimating the long-run relationship between income inequality and economic development," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 209-233, February.
    13. Matteo Iacoviello, 2008. "Household Debt and Income Inequality, 1963–2003," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 929-965, August.
    14. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Department of Economics Working Papers 2000-02, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    15. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:631-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Martin Wagner & Jaroslava Hlouskova, 2010. "The Performance of Panel Cointegration Methods: Results from a Large Scale Simulation Study," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 182-223, April.
    17. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    18. Cavaliere, Giuseppe & Xu, Fang, 2014. "Testing for unit roots in bounded time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P2), pages 259-272.
    19. Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1029-1061, April.
    20. Peter Pedroni, 2007. "Social capital, barriers to production and capital shares: implications for the importance of parameter heterogeneity from a nonstationary panel approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 429-451.
    21. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    22. Giorgio Bellettini & Flavio Delbono, 2013. "Persistence of High Income Inequality and Banking Crises: 1980-2010," CESifo Working Paper Series 4293, CESifo.
    23. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:653-70 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Peter Pedroni, 2001. "Purchasing Power Parity Tests In Cointegrated Panels," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 727-731, November.
    25. Barr, D G & Cuthbertson, Keith, 1991. "Neoclassical Consumer Demand Theory and the Demand for Money," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 855-876, July.
    26. Charles I. Jones, 1995. "Time Series Tests of Endogenous Growth Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 495-525.
    27. Young, Andrew T. & Dove, John A., 2013. "Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 182-196.
    28. Kremers, Jeroen J M & Ericsson, Neil R & Dolado, Juan J, 1992. "The Power of Cointegration Tests," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 325-348, August.
    29. Christophe Hurlin, 2010. "What would Nelson and Plosser find had they used panel unit root tests?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(12), pages 1515-1531.
    30. Francis, Neville & Ramey, Valerie A., 2005. "Is the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis dead? Shocks and aggregate fluctuations revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1379-1399, November.
    31. Ross Guest & Robyn Swift, 2008. "Fertility, income inequality, and labour productivity," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 597-618, October.
    32. Granger, Clive W.J., 2010. "Some thoughts on the development of cointegration," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(1), pages 3-6, September.
    33. Tuomas Malinen, 2013. "Is there a relationship between income inequality and credit cycles?," Working Papers 292, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    34. Dierk Herzer & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "Inequality and growth: evidence from panel cointegration," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(4), pages 489-503, December.
    35. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 653-670, November.
    36. Phillips, Peter C B & Ouliaris, S, 1990. "Asymptotic Properties of Residual Based Tests for Cointegration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 165-193, January.
    37. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    38. Mr. Romain Ranciere & Mr. Nathaniel A. Throckmorton & Mr. Michael Kumhof & Ms. Claire Lebarz & Mr. Alexander W. Richter, 2012. "Income Inequality and Current Account Imbalances," IMF Working Papers 2012/008, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Ricardo Barradas & Ines Tomas, 2023. "Household indebtedness in the European Union countries: Going beyond the mainstream interpretation," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 76(304), pages 21-49.
    2. Chletsos Michael & Roupakias Stelios, 2020. "The effect of military spending on income inequality: evidence from NATO countries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1305-1337, March.
    3. Fierro, Luca Eduardo & Giri, Federico & Russo, Alberto, 2023. "Inequality-constrained monetary policy in a financialized economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 366-385.
    4. Yamarik, Steven & El-Shagi, Makram & Yamashiro, Guy, 2016. "Does inequality lead to credit growth? Testing the Rajan hypothesis using state-level data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 63-67.
    5. Glenn Lauren Moore & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2018. "The drivers of household indebtedness reconsidered: An empirical evaluation of competing arguments on the macroeconomic determinants of household indebtedness in OECD countries," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 547-577, October.
    6. Ana Romão & Ricardo Barradas, 2024. "Macroeconomic determinants of households' indebtedness in Portugal: What really matters in the era of financialisation?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 383-401, January.
    7. Piotr Bolibok, 2018. "The Macroeconomic Drivers Of Household Debt-To-Income Ratio: An Evidence Frome The Oecd Countries," Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 7(2), pages 29-41.
    8. Sofia Vale & Francisco Camões, 2023. "Households’ Exposure to the Financial Sector as a Driver of Inequality: An Analysis of Advanced and Emerging Economies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(2), pages 362-402, June.
    9. Stockhammer, Engelbert & Wildauer, Rafael, 2018. "Expenditure Cascades, Low Interest Rates or Property Booms? Determinants of Household Debt in OECD Countries," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 85-121, September.
    10. Tuomas Malinen, 2016. "Does income inequality contribute to credit cycles?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(3), pages 309-325, September.
    11. El-Shagi, Makram & Fidrmuc, Jarko & Yamarik, Steven, 2020. "Inequality and credit growth in Russian regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 550-558.
    12. Bashir Ahmad Joo & Simtiha Ishaq Mir, 2024. "Evolution of the Household Debt Narrative: A PRISMA-compliant Systematic Literature Review," Paradigm, , vol. 28(1), pages 84-100, June.
    13. Kirschenmann, Karolin & Malinen, Tuomas & Nyberg, Henri, 2016. "The risk of financial crises: Is there a role for income inequality?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 161-180.
    14. Ying’ai Piao & Meiru Li & Hongyuan Sun & Ying Yang, 2023. "Income Inequality, Household Debt, and Consumption Growth in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, February.
    15. Ozlem Albayrak, 2020. "Household Consumption, Household Indebtedness, and Inequality in Turkey: A Microeconometric Analysis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_954, Levy Economics Institute.
    16. Schulz, Jan & Mayerhoffer, Daniel M., 2021. "A network approach to consumption," BERG Working Paper Series 173, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    17. Bellettini, Giorgio & Delbono, Flavio & Karlström, Peter & Pastorello, Sergio, 2019. "Income inequality and banking crises: Testing the level hypothesis directly," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. van Netten, Jamie, 2023. "The relationship between inequality and bank credit in Australia," Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers 54, Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers.

    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. Tuomas Malinen, 2016. "Does income inequality contribute to credit cycles?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(3), pages 309-325, September.
    2. Dierk Herzer, 2016. "Unions and Income Inequality: A Heterogeneous Panel Co-integration and Causality Analysis," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(3), pages 318-346, September.
    3. Herzer, Dierk, 2014. "Unions and income inequality: a heterogenous cointegration and causality analysis," Working Paper 146/2014, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    4. In Choi, 2012. "Panel Cointegration," Working Papers 1208, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    5. Eberhardt, Markus & Teal, Francis, 2008. "Modeling technology and technological change in manufacturing: how do countries differ?," MPRA Paper 10690, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Kahia, Montassar & Ben Aïssa, Mohamed Safouane & Charfeddine, Lanouar, 2016. "Impact of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on economic growth: New evidence from the MENA Net Oil Exporting Countries (NOECs)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(P1), pages 102-115.
    7. Herzer, Dierk & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2013. "Rising top incomes do not raise the tide," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 504-519.
    8. Dierk Herzer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2013. "Inward and outward FDI and income inequality: evidence from Europe," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(2), pages 395-422, June.
    9. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 357-385, December.
    10. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    11. Herzer, Dierk & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2015. "Income inequality and health: Evidence from developed and developing countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-56.
    12. Fang, Zheng & Chen, Yang, 2017. "Human capital, energy, and economic development – Evidence from Chinese provincial data," RIEI Working Papers 2017-03, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Research Institute for Economic Integration.
    13. Dierk Herzer, 2017. "Refugee Immigration and Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 390-414, July.
    14. Dedeoğlu, Dinçer & Kaya, Hüseyin, 2013. "Energy use, exports, imports and GDP: New evidence from the OECD countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 469-476.
    15. Andries, Natalia & Billon, Steve, 2016. "Retail bank interest rate pass-through in the euro area: An empirical survey," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 170-194.
    16. Nicole Grunewald & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2014. "Green Growth in Mexico, Brazil and Chile: Policy strategies and future prospects," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 229, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Dierk Herzer, 2010. "The Long-Run Relationship between Outward FDI and Total Factor Productivity: Evidence for Developing Countries," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 199, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik, 2017. "Religiosity and income: a panel cointegration and causality analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(30), pages 2922-2938, June.
    19. Jäger, Philipp & Schmidt, Torsten, 2016. "The political economy of public investment when population is aging: A panel cointegration analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 145-158.
    20. Herzer, Dierk & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2013. "Private Donations, Government Grants, Commercial Activities, and Fundraising: Cointegration and Causality for NGOs in International Development Cooperation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 234-251.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; Household debt; Panel cointegration; C23; D31; E25;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution

    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:kap:empiri:v:42:y:2015:i:2:p:391-412. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.