Abstract

We use a model of precautionary savings with housing and mortgages to study the effects of a deleveraging shock on consumer spending. We focus on the deleveraging caused by a contraction in home values, and compute numerically the partial-equilibrium effect of the shock. Our simulations show that household deleveraging is associated with a long and protracted weakness in consumption. These effects appear even if we assume, realistically, that housing wealth is illiquid and mortgage debt is long term. We show that housing wealth matters for consumption decisions due to an insurance force: consumers know they can sell their house if they get hit by sufficiently negative shocks in the future. We also show that our slow deleveraging mechanism is amplified when incomes are affected by a weak aggregate consumption demand through general-equilibrium effects.

中文翻译：

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缓慢的家庭去杠杆

摘要

我们使用住房和抵押贷款的预防性储蓄模型来研究去杠杆化冲击对消费者支出的影响。我们专注于房屋价值收缩引起的去杠杆化，并通过数值计算冲击的局部平衡效应。我们的模拟表明，家庭去杠杆化与长期长期消费疲软有关。即使我们实际上假设住房财富不是流动性的，抵押债务是长期的，这些影响也会出现。我们证明了住房财富对于由于保险力量而做出的消费决定至关重要：消费者知道，如果将来受到足够的负面冲击，他们可以出售房屋。