Research Discussion Paper – RDP 2003-07 Housing Wealth, Stock Market Wealth and Consumption: A Panel Analysis for Australia
July 2003
Abstract
This paper addresses the question of how changes in stock market wealth and housing wealth affect consumption expenditure in Australia. We approach the problem using a panel of Australian states, for which we construct data on housing and stock market wealth.
We estimate the link between consumption and the components of wealth using panel-data estimation techniques, including fixed-effects instrumental variable and panel DOLS estimators. Unlike previous studies, we find that both housing wealth and stock market wealth have a significant effect on Australian consumption. We estimate that a permanent increase in households' stock market wealth of one dollar increases annual consumption by 6 to 9 cents in the long run while a permanent increase in housing wealth of one dollar is estimated to increase long-run annual consumption by around 3 cents. However, given that households' housing assets are more than three times as large as stock market assets, our estimates imply that a one per cent increase in housing wealth has an effect on aggregate consumption that is at least as large as that of a one per cent increase in stock market wealth.