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House Price Shocks, Credit Constraints and Household Indebtedness

Author

Listed:
  • Kadir Atalay
  • Garry F Barrett
  • Rebecca Edwards
  • Chaoran Yu

Abstract

We analyse the effect of housing wealth on household indebtedness in a life-cycle framework. Exploiting longitudinal household data and temporal and geographic variation in house prices, our empirical results indicate that households respond to increases in housing wealth by significantly increasing their debt. The effect is strongest for households that are moderately leveraged, highlighting the importance of collateral constraints. Furthermore, we uncover a weaker wealth effect from house price growth for households that have faced negative shocks to income or employment. Importantly, our findings are consistent with the theoretical predictions of the life-cycle model: households increase their mortgage debt, but not their unsecured credit card debt. A novel finding is that we uncover a moderate positive wealth effect on investment loans.

Suggested Citation

  • Kadir Atalay & Garry F Barrett & Rebecca Edwards & Chaoran Yu, 2020. "House Price Shocks, Credit Constraints and Household Indebtedness," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 780-803.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:72:y:2020:i:3:p:780-803.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpaa017
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Atalay, Kadir & Li, Ang & Whelan, Stephen, 2021. "Housing wealth, fertility intentions and fertility," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Indrani Manna & Martin Suster & Biswajit Banerjee, 2022. "House Price Expectations, Household Indebtedness and Macroprudential Policy in Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 5/2022, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    3. Huazhu Zheng & Jiao Qian & Guihuan Liu & Yongjiao Wu & Claudio O. Delang & Hongming He, 2023. "Housing prices and household consumption: a threshold effect model analysis in central and western China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca, 2022. "House prices, housing wealth and financial well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Kim Nguyen, 2022. "Do Australian Households Borrow to Keep up with the Joneses?," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2022-06, Reserve Bank of Australia.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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