Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/11/2024
11:00 am - 12:30 pm

James Graham, Assistant Professor at the University of Sydney will present to our economics graduate students and faculty on Friday in KTH 334!

James’ is also a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, and is serving as Editor-in-Chief of New Zealand Economic Papers. His research is in macroeconomics, housing, and household finance. He will present the paper, “Of House and Home-Related Goods: Consumption Spending via the Home Purchase Channel” joint with Giovanni Favara and Geng Li.

Abstract
Buying a home often requires additional spending on home-related goods. We argue that this home purchase-expenditure channel is key to understanding the macroeconomic relationship between consumption and the housing market. Using household panel data, we find significant increases in home-related expenditure around the time of home purchase, but no change in unrelated expenditures. We rationalize this behavior in a heterogeneous agent life-cycle model with mismatch shocks between homes and home-related durables. Housing market shocks generate strong co-movement between home purchases and home- related spending. In housing boom and bust episodes, our channel accounts for up to 65 percent of the increase in aggregate consumption expenditures.

View James’ professional website.