Consumption and Savings of First Time House Owners: How Do They Deal with Adverse Income Shocks?

TY - UNPB

T1 - Consumption and Savings of First Time House Owners

T2 - How Do They Deal with Adverse Income Shocks?

AU - Ejarque, João

AU - Leth-Petersen, Søren

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - We characterize savings behavior around the point of the first house purchase. Using a panel data set with income and wealth information on Danish first-time house owners we document that households save for the down payment, mortgage to the limit, run down liquid assets at purchase, and adjust to adverse income shocks occurring just after the purchase by reducing consumption. We build a model that replicates these observations, show that the preference parameters are identified from the data, and estimate them. Based on the estimated model house buying significantly reduces the ability to smooth adverse income shocks.

AB - We characterize savings behavior around the point of the first house purchase. Using a panel data set with income and wealth information on Danish first-time house owners we document that households save for the down payment, mortgage to the limit, run down liquid assets at purchase, and adjust to adverse income shocks occurring just after the purchase by reducing consumption. We build a model that replicates these observations, show that the preference parameters are identified from the data, and estimate them. Based on the estimated model house buying significantly reduces the ability to smooth adverse income shocks.

M3 - Working paper

BT - Consumption and Savings of First Time House Owners

PB - Centre for Applied Microeconometrics. Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

ER -