Consumer Credit, Housing Prices, and Consumption

提案题目：消费信贷、房价和消费这个项目评估房地产繁荣对消费者借贷和消费的影响。该项目开发了一种新的实证方法，将房价变化对家庭借贷和消费的因果影响分开。该方法探讨了邮政编码水平的房价变化，同时吸收了县一级所有可能的经济冲击。然后，它利用信贷初始潜在需求的变化来提供“供给侧诱导”的房价增长变化，这种变化似乎与邮政编码水平的需求侧变化是外生的。该项目使用房屋净值信贷额度、信用卡债务和汽车贷款的详细消费者水平数据，探索现有房主如何应对房价升值的外生因素。它还估算了贷款对房屋资产价格的反应是否会因消费者的收入、年龄和信用历史而有所不同。该项目跟踪了从1998年到2008年的很长一段时间，并测试了消费者是否利用房价升值来替代信用卡债务。最后，它还会估计，以房价升值为抵押的贷款最终是否会导致更高的违约率。该项目的第二部分从消费角度估计房价上涨的实际副作用。这样做的一个主要困难是衡量地方（县/邮政）一级的消费。该项目使用人口普查中详细的编制水平数据来构建地方一级零售销售的消费代理。然后，这些消费指标被用来估计房价和消费者借贷对消费乃至总产出的最终影响。该项目的结果为“21世纪第一次重大危机”的起因提供了新的见解，并从资产价格、杠杆和消费的角度强调了房地产繁荣和萧条的后果。从我们的研究中吸取的经验教训，对于理解经济的金融和实体方面之间的相互作用非常重要。特别是，尽管许多人经常质疑资产价格在影响消费者借贷和消费方面所起的作用，但从经验上孤立这一渠道的方向和规模一直很困难。

Proposal Title: Consumer Credit, Housing Prices, and ConsumptionSBE-SES 0820337: MianThis project evaluates the impact of the housing boom on consumer borrowing, and consumption. The project develops a new empirical methodology that separates the causal impact of the change in house prices on household borrowing and consumption. The methodology explores zip code level variation in house prices while absorbing all possible economic shocks at the level of a county. It then uses variation in initial latent demand for credit to provide "supply-side induced" variation in house price growth that is plausibly exogenous to demand side changes at the zip code level. The project uses detailed consumer level data on home equity lines of credit, credit card debt, and auto loans to explore how existing home owners respond to the exogenous component of home price appreciation. It also estimates whether the borrowing response to home asset prices differs by a consumer's income, age and credit history. The project follows a long period of time from 1998 to 2008, and tests whether consumers use home price appreciation to substitute out of credit card debt. Finally, it estimates if borrowing against home price appreciation ultimately leads to higher default rates or not.The second part of the project estimates the real side impact of increase in home prices in terms of consumption. A major difficulty in doing so is measuring consumption at the local (county/zip) level. This project uses detailed establishment level data from census to construct proxies of consumption using retail sales at the local level. These consumption measures are then used to estimate the final impact of home prices and consumer borrowing on consumption and hence aggregate output.The project's results provide new insights into the causes of the "first major crisis of the 21st century", and also highlight the consequences of the housing boom and bust in terms of asset prices, leverage and consumption. The lessons learnt from our research are important for understanding the interplay between financial and real side of the economy. In particular, while many have often questioned the role that asset prices play in affecting consumer borrowing and consumption, empirically isolating the direction and magnitude of this channel has been difficult.