期刊名称：HIER Discussion Paper Series / Harvard Institute of Economic Research
出版年度：2005
卷号：2005
出版社：Harvard Institute of Economic Research
摘要：Housing is a major component of wealth. Since house prices fluctuate
considerably over time, it is important to understand how these fluctuations
affect households’ consumption decisions. Rising house prices may stimulate
consumption by increasing households’ perceived wealth, or by relaxing borrowing
constraints. This paper investigates the response of household consumption to
house prices using UK micro data. We estimate the largest effect of house prices
on consumption for older homeowners, and the smallest effect, insignificantly
different from zero, for younger renters. This finding is consistent with
heterogeneity in the wealth effect across these groups. In addition, we find
that regional house prices affect regional consumption growth. Predictable
changes in house prices are correlated with predictable changes in consumption,
particularly for households that are more likely to be borrowing constrained,
but this effect is driven by national rather than regional house prices and is
important for renters as well as homeowners, suggesting that UK house prices are
correlated with aggregate financial market conditions.
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