House Price Channel: Effects of House Prices on Macroeconomy

This paper investigates the manner in which house prices affect macroeconomic variables through a house price channel by applying the method of Iacoviello (2005) to Korean data, and establishing a DSGE model with complementarity. This paper found that higher LTV ratio coupled with stronger complementarity results in the co-movement in both consumption and housing. For instance, the results show that when the LTV ratio and complementarity stands respectively at 50% and 0.42, an 1% rise in house prices increases consumption by 0.057%, and when the complementarity parameter increases to 0.52 with LTV remains unchanged at 50%, consumption rises by 0.047% per 1% increase in house prices. An increase in house prices leads credit constraints for borrowers to become more loose as value of a house rises as a collateral. The increase in household credit enables more consumer spending, eventually leading to increased consumption. A key link in which house prices are connected to macroeconomic variables is change in consumption. To put it simply, a rise in house prices leads to an increase in consumption, which consequently impacts the overall macro-economy. At this point, complementarity is found, in that the elasticity of intra-temporal substitution between housing and consumption is estimated at 0.42, which plays an important role in the house price channel by amplifying the effects of house prices on consumption.