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Financial effects in historic consumption and investment functions

Stockhammer, Engelbert and Bengtsson, Erik LU (2019) In Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues
Abstract
The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of financial factors on economic performance. Most of the existing research analyses the post-World War 2 experience, and especially the 1980s onwards. This paper investigates the effects of stock prices, real estate prices and debt on consumption and investment expenditures by estimating consumption and investment equations for long historic datasets with about 100 years of data for Britain, France, Norway and Sweden. We find positive debt effects on consumption in three of four countries, but no consistent effects of share prices and house prices. We find positive effects of share prices on investment in all four countries. Effects are stronger in more market-based Britain than... (More)
The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of financial factors on economic performance. Most of the existing research analyses the post-World War 2 experience, and especially the 1980s onwards. This paper investigates the effects of stock prices, real estate prices and debt on consumption and investment expenditures by estimating consumption and investment equations for long historic datasets with about 100 years of data for Britain, France, Norway and Sweden. We find positive debt effects on consumption in three of four countries, but no consistent effects of share prices and house prices. We find positive effects of share prices on investment in all four countries. Effects are stronger in more market-based Britain than in more state-oriented France. For France, Sweden and Norway we find some evidence that effects of financial variables were weaker in the postwar period 1945-80. These findings suggest that the institutional context matters for how financial variables affect economic activity. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
wealth effects, asset prices, consumption, investment, macroeconomic history, E1, E21, E22, G1, N1
in
Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues
issue
2019:188
pages
51 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a1a1f04e-62c3-4ff8-913b-84e987f7dd4c
date added to LUP
2019-01-07 16:10:45
date last changed
2019-01-07 16:10:45
@misc{a1a1f04e-62c3-4ff8-913b-84e987f7dd4c,
  abstract     = {{The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of financial factors on economic performance. Most of the existing research analyses the post-World War 2 experience, and especially the 1980s onwards. This paper investigates the effects of stock prices, real estate prices and debt on consumption and investment expenditures by estimating consumption and investment equations for long historic datasets with about 100 years of data for Britain, France, Norway and Sweden. We find positive debt effects on consumption in three of four countries, but no consistent effects of share prices and house prices. We find positive effects of share prices on investment in all four countries. Effects are stronger in more market-based Britain than in more state-oriented France. For France, Sweden and Norway we find some evidence that effects of financial variables were weaker in the postwar period 1945-80. These findings suggest that the institutional context matters for how financial variables affect economic activity.}},
  author       = {{Stockhammer, Engelbert and Bengtsson, Erik}},
  keywords     = {{wealth effects; asset prices; consumption; investment; macroeconomic history; E1; E21; E22; G1; N1}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2019:188}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History. General Issues}},
  title        = {{Financial effects in historic consumption and investment functions}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/56572882/LUPEH_188.pdf}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}