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Olympia Bover
- 20 February 2014
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1639Details
- Abstract
- The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we present an up-to-date assessment of the differences across euro area countries in the distributions of various measures of debt conditional on household characteristics. We consider three different outcomes: the probability of holding debt, the amount of debt held and, in the case of secured debt, the interest rate paid on the main mortgage. Second, we examine the role of legal and economic institutions in accounting for these differences. We use data from the first wave of a new survey of household finances, the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, to achieve these aims. We find that the patterns of secured and unsecured debt outcomes vary markedly across countries. Among all the institutions considered the length of asset repossession periods best accounts for the features of the distribution of secured debt. In countries with longer repossession periods, the fraction of people who borrow is smaller, the youngest group of households borrow lower amounts (conditional on borrowing), and the mortgage interest rates paid by low-income households are higher. Regulatory loan-to-value ratios, the taxation of mortgages and the prevalence of interest-only or fixed rate mortgages deliver less robust results.
- JEL Code
- D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation
K35 : Law and Economics→Other Substantive Areas of Law→Personal Bankruptcy Law - Network
- Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN)
- 9 January 2009
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 100Details
- Abstract
- The first part of this paper provides a brief survey of the recent literature that employs survey data on household finance and consumption. Given the breadth of the topic, it focuses on issues that are particularly relevant for policy, namely: i) wealth effects on consumption, ii) housing prices and household indebtedness, iii) retirement income, consumption and pension reforms, iv) access to credit and credit constraints, v) financial innovation, consumption smoothing and portfolio selection and vi) wealth inequality. The second part uses concrete examples to summarise how results from such surveys feed into policy-making within the central banks that already conduct such surveys.
- JEL Code
- C42 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics→Survey Methods
D12 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance - Network
- Eurosystem Monetary Transmission Network
- 1 January 2002
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 117Details
- Abstract
- In this paper we propose an alternative to traditional hedonics for estimating new multiunit housing inflation, adjusting for quality changes. By relying on the within-site variation we control in a very general way for unobserved housing characteristics using site-specific effects. Precise location, transport, traffic, closeness to services, or construction quality are some of the unobserved but typically relevant housing characteristics that may bias estimated house price inflation, even when using hedonic methods. We also estimate standard hedonic equations and compare the results to those obtained with the alternative hedonic equations with site dummies. Our dataset is fairly rich in observable housing characteristics but, nevertheless, the quality-adjusted house price evolution is quite different in some cases. The data cover the construction of new housing in some of the large Spanish cities and in the smaller towns on the outskirts of the capital during part of the 1990s.
- JEL Code
- C43 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics→Index Numbers and Aggregation
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
O47 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity→Measurement of Economic Growth, Aggregate Productivity, Cross-Country Output Convergence
R31 : Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics→Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location→Housing Supply and Markets