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Housing Wealth and Online Consumer Behavior:Evidence from Xiong'an New Area in China

Author

Listed:
  • Hanming Fang

    (University of Pennsylvania and the NBER)

  • Long Wang

    (Fudan University)

  • Yang Yang

    (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Abstract

We provide new evidence on the causal effects of housing wealth on consumer behavior.To overcome the empirical challenge of non-random housing wealth changes, we exploit the unexpected announcement of China's newest national-level new area - Xiong'an New Area - on April 1, 2017 as an exogenous shock to housing prices. We use a proprietary dataset of individual-level online consumption from the largest e-commerce company in China to measure various aspects of consumer behavior, such as consumption patterns, purchase hesitation, tolerance to unsatisfied products, and shirking (proxied by making online purchases during work hours). We explore the underlying mechanisms through which the housing shock a effects consumer behavior; in particular, we attempt to disentangle the realizable and unrealizable housing wealth effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanming Fang & Long Wang & Yang Yang, 2022. "Housing Wealth and Online Consumer Behavior:Evidence from Xiong'an New Area in China," PIER Working Paper Archive 22-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:22-021
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Housing price; wealth effects; consumer behavior; online consumption;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

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