Real Estate Bubble - Macroeconomic Significance

Macroeconomic Significance

Within mainstream economics, economic bubbles, and in particular real estate bubbles, are not considered major concerns. Within some schools of heterodox economics, by contrast, real estate bubbles are considered of critical importance and a fundamental cause of financial crises and ensuing economic crises.

The mainstream economic view is that economic bubbles bring about a temporary boost in wealth and a redistribution of wealth. When prices increase, there is a positive wealth effect (property owners feel richer and spend more), and when they decline, there is a negative wealth effect (property owners feel poorer and spend less). These effects, it is argued, can be smoothed by counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policies. The ultimate effect on owners who bought before the bubble formed and did not sell is zero. Those who bought when low and sold high profited, while those who bought high and sold low (after the bubble has burst) or held until the price fell lost money. This redistribution of wealth, it is also argued, is of little macroeconomic significance.

In some schools of heterodox economics, notably Austrian economics and Post-Keynesian economics, real estate bubbles are seen as an example of credit bubbles (pejoratively, speculative bubbles), because property owners generally use borrowed money to purchase property, in the form of mortgages. These are then argued to cause financial and hence economic crises. This is first argued empirically – numerous real estate bubbles have been followed by economic slumps, and it is argued that there is a cause-effect relationship between these.

The Post-Keynesian theory of debt deflation takes a demand-side view, arguing that property owners not only feel richer but borrow to (i) consume against the increased value of their property --- by taking out a home equity line of credit), for instance; or (ii) speculate by buying property with borrowed money in the expectation that it will rise in value. When the bubble bursts, the value of the property decreases but not the level of debt. The burden of repaying or defaulting on the loan depresses aggregate demand, it is argued, and constitutes the proximate cause of the subsequent economic slump.