Business Cycle Implications of Mortgage Spreads

Karl Walentin

No 275, Working Paper Series from Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract: How do aggregate quantities at the business cycle frequency respond to shocks to the spread between residential mortgage rates and government bonds? Using a structural VAR approach, we find that mortgage spread shocks impact the real economy by both economically and statistically significant magnitudes: a 100 basis point decline in the spread causes a peak increase in consumption, residential investment and GDP by 1.6 percent, 6.2 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. These effects are magnified when the policy rate is held fixed, as was the case in the US during the recent implementation of unconventional monetary policy.

Keywords: Sources of business cycles; unconventional monetary policy; credit supply; house prices; financial frictions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E32 E44 E52 R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2013-09-01, Revised 2014-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-mac and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (63)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Business cycle implications of mortgage spreads (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0275

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