IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imk/wpaper/133-2014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Interaction of Mortgage Credit and Housing Prices in the US

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_imk_wp_133_2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Hellwig, 2009. "Systemic Risk in the Financial Sector: An Analysis of the Subprime-Mortgage Financial Crisis," De Economist, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 129-207, June.
    2. Boivin, Jean & Kiley, Michael T. & Mishkin, Frederic S., 2010. "How Has the Monetary Transmission Mechanism Evolved Over Time?," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 369-422, Elsevier.
    3. Edward E. Leamer, 2007. "Housing is the business cycle," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 149-233.
    4. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024," Reports 45010, Congressional Budget Office.
    5. Boris Hofmann, 2004. "The Determinants of Bank Credit in Industrialized Countries: Do Property Prices Matter?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 203-234, July.
    6. Oikarinen, Elias, 2009. "Interaction between housing prices and household borrowing: The Finnish case," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 747-756, April.
    7. Charles Goodhart & Boris Hofmann, 2003. "Deflation, Credit and Asset Prices," Working Papers 132003, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    9. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024," Reports 45653, Congressional Budget Office.
    10. Mr. Abdelhak S Senhadji & Mr. Charles Collyns, 2002. "Lending Booms, Real Estate Bubbles and the Asian Crisis," IMF Working Papers 2002/020, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Gordon H. Sellon & Deana VanNahmen, 1988. "The securitization of housing finance," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 73(Jul), pages 3-20.
    12. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    13. Richard K. Green & Susan M. Wachter, 2005. "The American Mortgage in Historical and International Context," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 93-114, Fall.
    14. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    15. Berndt, Antje & Gupta, Anurag, 2009. "Moral hazard and adverse selection in the originate-to-distribute model of bank credit," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 725-743, July.
    16. Trevor Fitzpatrick & Kieran Mcquinn, 2007. "House Prices And Mortgage Credit: Empirical Evidence For Ireland," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(1), pages 82-103, January.
    17. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The behavior of home buyers in boom and post-boom markets," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 29-46.
    18. John V. Duca & John Muellbauer & Anthony Murphy, 2011. "House Prices and Credit Constraints: Making Sense of the US Experience," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 533-551, May.
    19. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Housing and the monetary transmission mechanism," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 359-413.
    20. Davis, E. Philip & Zhu, Haibin, 2011. "Bank lending and commercial property cycles: Some cross-country evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 1-21, February.
    21. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    22. Gerlach, Stefan & Peng, Wensheng, 2005. "Bank lending and property prices in Hong Kong," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 461-481, February.
    23. 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.
    24. John B. Taylor, 2007. "Housing and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 463-476.
    25. Jonathan McCarthy & Richard Peach, 2002. "Monetary policy transmission to residential investment," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 139-158.
    26. Itzhak Ben-David, 2011. "Financial Constraints and Inflated Home Prices during the Real Estate Boom," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 55-87, July.
    27. Del Negro, Marco & Otrok, Christopher, 2007. "99 Luftballons: Monetary policy and the house price boom across U.S. states," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1962-1985, October.
    28. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024," Reports 45653, Congressional Budget Office.
    29. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-1580, November.
    30. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 1999. "Bubbles, Crises, and Policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 15(3), pages 9-18, Autumn.
    31. R. Alton Gilbert, 1986. "Requiem for Regulation Q: what it did and why it passed away," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Feb, pages 22-37.
    32. John H. Boyd & Stanley L. Graham, 1991. "Investigating the banking consolidation trend," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 15(Spr), pages 3-15.
    33. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024," Reports 45010, Congressional Budget Office.
    34. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    35. Charles P. Kindleberger & Robert Z. Aliber, 2005. "Manias, Panics and Crashes," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, edition 0, number 978-0-230-62804-5, December.
    36. Sophocles Brissimis & Thomas Vlassopoulos, 2009. "The Interaction between Mortgage Financing and Housing Prices in Greece," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 146-164, August.
    37. James M. Poterba, 1984. "Tax Subsidies to Owner-Occupied Housing: An Asset-Market Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(4), pages 729-752.
    38. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024," Reports 45010, Congressional Budget Office.
    39. Daniel J. McDonald & Daniel L. Thornton, 2008. "A primer on the mortgage market and mortgage finance," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Jan), pages 31-46.
    40. Jane Dokko & Brian M. Doyle & Michael T. Kiley & Jinill Kim & Shane Sherlund & Jae Sim & Skander Van Den Heuvel, 2011. "Monetary policy and the global housing bubble [Assessing dynamic efficiency: theory and evidence]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 26(66), pages 237-287.
    41. Serena Ng & Pierre Perron, 2001. "LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1519-1554, November.
    42. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    43. Gimeno, Ricardo & Martí­nez-Carrascal, Carmen, 2010. "The relationship between house prices and house purchase loans: The Spanish case," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1849-1855, August.
    44. Van Order, Robert & Dougherty, Ann, 1991. "Housing demand and real interest rates," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 191-201, March.
    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. 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. 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).
    4. 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.
    5. Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & Mc Inerney, Niall, 2014. "The Role of Credit in the Housing Market," Papers WP495, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

    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. repec:imk:wpaper:133-2013 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Nobili, Andrea & Zollino, Francesco, 2017. "A structural model for the housing and credit market in Italy," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 73-87.
    3. Anundsen, André K. & Jansen, Eilev S., 2013. "Self-reinforcing effects between housing prices and credit," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 192-212.
    4. Damen, Sven & Vastmans, Frank & Buyst, Erik, 2016. "The effect of mortgage interest deduction and mortgage characteristics on house prices," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 15-29.
    5. Heeho Kim & SaeWoon Park & Sun Hye Lee, 2012. "House Price and Bank Lending in a Premium Submarket in Korea," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42.
    6. Greg Howard & Jack Liebersohn, 2023. "Regional Divergence and House Prices," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 49, pages 312-350, July.
    7. Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & Mc Inerney, Niall, 2014. "The Role of Credit in the Housing Market," Papers WP495, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. André K. Anundsen & Eilev S. Jansen, 2013. "Self-reinforcing effects between housing prices and credit: an extended version," Discussion Papers 756, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    9. Sophocles Brissimis & Thomas Vlassopoulos, 2009. "The Interaction between Mortgage Financing and Housing Prices in Greece," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 146-164, August.
    10. Bofinger, Peter & Schnabel, Isabel & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2014. "Mehr Vertrauen in Marktprozesse. Jahresgutachten 2014/15 [More confidence in market processes. Annual Report 2014/15]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201415.
    11. 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.
    12. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    13. Sara Ferreira Filipe, 2018. "Housing prices and mortgage credit in Luxembourg," BCL working papers 117, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    14. Oikarinen, Elias, 2009. "Household borrowing and metropolitan housing price dynamics - Empirical evidence from Helsinki," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 126-139, June.
    15. Koetter, Michael & Poghosyan, Tigran, 2010. "Real estate prices and bank stability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1129-1138, June.
    16. Crowe, Christopher & Dell’Ariccia, Giovanni & Igan, Deniz & Rabanal, Pau, 2013. "How to deal with real estate booms: Lessons from country experiences," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 300-319.
    17. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Merike Kukk, 2017. "Asymmetries in the interaction between housing prices and housing credit in Estonia," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2017-2, Bank of Estonia, revised 25 May 2017.
    18. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    19. Oikarinen, Elias, 2009. "Interaction between housing prices and household borrowing: The Finnish case," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 747-756, April.
    20. Duca, John V. & Muellbauer, John & Murphy, Anthony, 2010. "Housing markets and the financial crisis of 2007-2009: Lessons for the future," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 203-217, December.
    21. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Merike Kukk, 2019. "Are there asymmetries in the interaction between housing prices and housing credit? Evidence from a country with rapid credit accumulation," Working Papers 2019/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:imk:wpaper:133-2014. 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: Sabine Nemitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imkhbde.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.