After the global financial crisis, there is greater awareness of the need to understand the interactions between the financial sector and the real economy and hence the potential for financial instability. Data from the financial flow of funds, previously relatively neglected, are now seen as...

House price booms in Anglo-Saxon economies and their collapse were an important part of the financial accelerator via consumption, construction and the banking system. This paper examines links for Germany between household portfolios, income and consumption in a six-equation system, for...

There is widespread agreement that, in the United States, higher house prices raise consumption via collateral or possibly wealth effects. The presence of similar channels in Canada would have important implications for monetary policy transmission. We trace the impact of shifts in non-price...

Housing is the single most important component of personal wealth in most countries. The special characteristics of housing markets are therefore key to understanding personal portfolios, saving, the household distribution of wealth, and the monetary transmission mechanism. This paper discusses...

Official balance sheet estimates for the household sector are not currently available in South Africa, yet, with the country’s well developed financial sector and deep capital markets, asset market channels are likely to be important determinants of aggregate consumer spending and saving,...