IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/90.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentives to Borrow and the Demand for Mortgage Debt: An Analysis of Tax Reforms

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Before 1992 mortgage interest in Italy was fully tax deductible up to 3,500 Euro (7,000 for two cosigners). In 1992-94 the government implemented a series of tax reforms whose ultimate effect was to cancel the relation between the after-tax mortgage rate and the marginal tax rate. Using data from the 1987-2000 Survey of Household Income and Wealth we test if the cancellation of incentives has reduced the propensity to borrow of high-income taxpayers relative to the other population groups. Difference-in-differences estimates and regression analysis indicate that tax considerations have not affected the demand for mortgage debt, either at the extensive or intensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2002. "Incentives to Borrow and the Demand for Mortgage Debt: An Analysis of Tax Reforms," CSEF Working Papers 90, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp90.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scholz, J.K., 1993. "Tax Progressivity and Household Portfolio: Descriptive Evidence from the Surveys of Consumer Finances," Working papers 9304, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    2. Slemrod,Joel, 1997. "Tax Progressivity and Income Inequality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521587761, October.
    3. Patric H. Hendershott & Gwilyn Pryce & Michael White, 2002. "Household Leverage and the Deductibility of Home Mortgage Interest: Evidence from UK House Purchasers," NBER Working Papers 9207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio, 2000. "Household Portfolios in Italy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2549, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. James M. Poterba, 2001. "Taxation and Portfolio Structure: Issues and Implications," NBER Working Papers 8223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jonathan Crook & Stefan Hochguertel, 2007. "US and European Household Debt and Credit Constraints," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-087/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Nuno C. Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program," Economics Working Papers 713, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Gaganis, Chrysovalantis & Hasan, Iftekhar & Pasiouras, Fotios, 2020. "National culture and housing credit," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 19-41.
    4. Rossi, Mariacristina, 2005. "Households’ Consumption under the Habit Formation Hypothesis. Evidence from Italian Households using the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW)," Economics Discussion Papers 8886, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    5. Martins, Nuno C. & Villanueva, Ernesto, 2006. "The impact of mortgage interest-rate subsidies on household borrowing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1601-1623, September.
    6. Monica Paiella & Alberto Franco Pozzolo, 2007. "Choosing between Fixed- and Adjustable-Rate Mortgages," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Sumit Agarwal & Brent W. Ambrose (ed.), Household Credit Usage, chapter 0, pages 219-236, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Nuno C. Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program," Economics Working Papers 713, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

    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. Mihir A. Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2007. "Taxes and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from JGTRRA's Treatment of International Dividends," NBER Working Papers 13281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. repec:fth:jonhop:430 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Saarimaa, Tuukka, 2005. "Taxation and Debt Financing of Home Acquisition: Evidence from the Finnish 1993 Tax Reform," Discussion Papers 366, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Christopher D. Carroll, 2000. "Portfolios of the Rich," NBER Working Papers 7826, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. James M. Poterba & Arturo Ramirez Verdugo, 2008. "Portfolio Substitution and the Revenue Cost of Exempting State and Local Government Interest Payments from Federal Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 14439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Rosen, H.S.Harvey S. & Wu, Stephen, 2004. "Portfolio choice and health status," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 457-484, June.
    7. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    8. Nuno C. Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program," Economics Working Papers 713, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    9. Martins, Nuno C. & Villanueva, Ernesto, 2006. "The impact of mortgage interest-rate subsidies on household borrowing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1601-1623, September.
    10. James M. Poterba, 2001. "Taxation and Portfolio Structure: Issues and Implications," NBER Working Papers 8223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    12. Monica Paiella & Alberto Franco Pozzolo, 2007. "Choosing between Fixed- and Adjustable-Rate Mortgages," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Sumit Agarwal & Brent W. Ambrose (ed.), Household Credit Usage, chapter 0, pages 219-236, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Sule Alan & Søren Leth-Petersen, 2006. "Tax Incentives and Household Portfolios: A Panel Data Analysis," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 163, McMaster University.
    14. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2003. "Tax incentives and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1779-1799, August.
    15. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2002. "Tax Incentives for Household Saving and Borrowing," CSEF Working Papers 83, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    16. William M. Gentry & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1997. "Distributional Implications of Introducing a Broad-Based Consumption Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 11, pages 1-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. repec:pri:cepsud:75rosen is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.
    19. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    20. Slemrod, Joel, 1998. "Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 4), pages 773-88, December.
    21. Bertocchi, Graziella & Brunetti, Marianna & Torricelli, Costanza, 2011. "Marriage and other risky assets: A portfolio approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 2902-2915, November.
    22. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Larrimore, Jeff & Simon, Kosali I., 2012. "A "Second Opinion" on the Economic Health of the American Middle Class," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(1), pages 7-32, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

    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:sef:csefwp:90. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.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.