Housing is a long-lived asset whose value is sensitive to variations in expectations of long-run growth rates and interest rates. When a large fraction of households has leverage, housing price fluctuations cause large-scale redistribution and consumption volatility. We find that a practical way to insure the young and the poor from the housing market fluctuations is through a well-functioning rental market. In practice, homeownership subsidies keep the rental market small and the housing cycle affects aggregate consumption. Removing homeownership subsidies hurts old homeowners, while leverage limits hurt young homeowners.
This paper presents a new method to estimate the depreciation rate of durable goods using a combination of identified marginal and average spending shares. We apply our method to Chinese spending responses to disposable income changes induced by monetary policy in 2008–09. The marginal total spending response is 0.40. About 46% of this marginal spending response is due to durable goods. By combining this marginal spending share on durables with an average spending share of 14%, we estimate the annual depreciation rate of durables in China to be 0.17.
We estimate the effect of job loss on households’ bank account ownership using novel data: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-sponsored biennial supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS), linked to respondents’ work history in surrounding months constructed from the Basic Monthly CPS. Leveraging differences in the timing of unemployment spells across households, we show that job loss leads to a large decrease in the likelihood of having an account among the lower-income, renter households we study. Job loss also leads to increased use of other products and services that might substitute for a bank account, including prepaid cards, check cashing, and money orders.