American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Effect of House Prices on Household Borrowing: A New Approach
American Economic Review
vol. 109,
no. 6, June 2019
(pp. 2104–36)
Abstract
We investigate the effect of house prices on household borrowing using administrative mortgage data from the United Kingdom and a new empirical approach. The data contain household-level information on house prices and borrowing in a panel of homeowners, who refinance at regular and quasi-exogenous intervals. The data and setting allow us to develop an empirical approach that exploits house price variation coming from the idiosyncratic and exogenous timing of refinance events around the Great Recession. We present two main results. First, there is a clear and robust effect of house prices on borrowing. Second, the effect of house prices on borrowing can be explained largely by collateral effects. We study the collateral channel through a multivariate and nonparametric heterogeneity analysis of proxies for collateral and wealth effects.Citation
Cloyne, James, Kilian Huber, Ethan Ilzetzki, and Henrik Kleven. 2019. "The Effect of House Prices on Household Borrowing: A New Approach." American Economic Review, 109 (6): 2104–36. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180086Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- R31 Housing Supply and Markets