[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v192y2017icp36-48.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of house prices on health: New evidence from Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Atalay, Kadir
  • Edwards, Rebecca
  • Liu, Betty Y.J.
Abstract
Recent house price variation has strongly affected households’ housing wealth and debt, yet the non-economic consequences of these changes in housing wealth are still poorly understood. Using a sample of 19,000 individuals from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA) for 2001–2015, we examine the relationship between house price fluctuations and individual health by exploiting large exogenous changes in house prices in Australia. We find that an increase in local house prices is associated with a positive effect on the physical health of outright owners and a negative effect on the physical and mental health of renters. Improvements in physical health for outright owners can be partially attributed to health-related investments and behaviours such as a reduction in weight, an increase in physical exercise and an increase in time allocated to home production. These findings support the presence of a health-wealth gradient through the wealth mechanism distinct from the effects of local area amenities and macroeconomic conditions. Our findings highlight some of the often-overlooked social impacts – both positive and negative – of fluctuations in the housing market.

Suggested Citation

  • Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca & Liu, Betty Y.J., 2017. "Effects of house prices on health: New evidence from Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 36-48.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:192:y:2017:i:c:p:36-48
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.09.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617305415
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.09.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2005. "Healthy living in hard times," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 341-363, March.
    2. Benítez-Silva, Hugo & Eren, Selçuk & Heiland, Frank & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi, 2015. "How well do individuals predict the selling prices of their homes?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 12-25.
    3. Janine Aron & John V. Duca & John N. Muellbauer & Keiko Murata & Anthony Murphy, 2010. "Credit, housing collateral and consumption: evidence from the UK, Japan and the US," Working Papers 1002, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    4. John Mullahy, 2016. "Time and Health Status in Health Economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1351-1354, November.
    5. Campbell, John Y. & Cocco, Joao F., 2007. "How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 591-621, April.
    6. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2016. "International Comparative Household Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 111-144, October.
    7. Richard Disney & John Gathergood, 2018. "House Prices, Wealth Effects and Labour Supply," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(339), pages 449-478, July.
    8. Janet Currie & Erdal Tekin, 2015. "Is There a Link between Foreclosure and Health?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 63-94, February.
    9. Downing, Janelle, 2016. "The health effects of the foreclosure crisis and unaffordable housing: A systematic review and explanation of evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 88-96.
    10. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew J., 2007. "Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 49-60, January.
    11. Del Boca, Daniela & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2003. "Credit market constraints and labor market decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 681-703, December.
    12. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2000. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 617-650.
    13. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    14. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2003. "Good times make you sick," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 637-658, July.
    15. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    16. Benedicte Apouey & Andrew E. Clark, 2015. "Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 516-538, May.
    17. Mason, Kate E. & Baker, Emma & Blakely, Tony & Bentley, Rebecca J., 2013. "Housing affordability and mental health: Does the relationship differ for renters and home purchasers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 91-97.
    18. Beomsoo Kim & Christopher J. Ruhm, 2012. "Inheritances, health and death," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 127-144, February.
    19. Fortin, Nicole M, 1995. "Allocation Inflexibilities, Female Labor Supply, and Housing Assets Accumulation: Are Women Working to Pay the Mortgage?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 524-557, July.
    20. Janine Aron & John V. Duca & John Muellbauer & Keiko Murata & Anthony Murphy, 2012. "Credit, Housing Collateral, And Consumption: Evidence From Japan, The U.K., And The U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(3), pages 397-423, September.
    21. Benzeval, Michaela & Judge, Ken, 2001. "Income and health: the time dimension," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(9), pages 1371-1390, May.
    22. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01155641 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1990. "Sleep and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 922-943, October.
    24. Peter Adams & Michael D. Hurd & Daniel L. McFadden & Angela Merrill & Tiago Ribeiro, 2004. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise? Tests for Direct Causal Paths between Health and Socioeconomic Status," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 415-526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Anita Ratcliffe, 2015. "Wealth Effects, Local Area Attributes, and Economic Prospects: On the Relationship between House Prices and Mental Wellbeing," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 75-92, March.
    26. Eleonora Fichera & John Gathergood, 2016. "Do Wealth Shocks Affect Health? New Evidence from the Housing Boom," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 57-69, November.
    27. Hemingway, H. & Nicholson, A. & Stafford, M. & Roberts, R. & Marmot, M., 1997. "The impact of socioeconomic status on health functioning as assessed by the SF-36 questionnaire: The Whitehall II study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(9), pages 1484-1490.
    28. Yilmazer, Tansel & Babiarz, Patryk & Liu, Fen, 2015. "The impact of diminished housing wealth on health in the United States: Evidence from the Great Recession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 234-241.
    29. repec:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i::p:57-69 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    31. Meer, Jonathan & Miller, Douglas L. & Rosen, Harvey S., 2003. "Exploring the health-wealth nexus," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 713-730, September.
    32. Mikael Lindahl, 2005. "Estimating the Effect of Income on Health and Mortality Using Lottery Prizes as an Exogenous Source of Variation in Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    33. van Kippersluis, Hans & Galama, Titus J., 2014. "Wealth and health behavior: Testing the concept of a health cost," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 197-220.
    34. Renata Bottazzi, 2004. "Labour market participation and mortgage related borrowing constraints," IFS Working Papers W04/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    35. Clayton, Maya & Liñares-Zegarra, José & Wilson, John O.S., 2015. "Does debt affect health? Cross country evidence on the debt-health nexus," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 51-58.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shi, Xuezhu, 2022. "The health-wealth nexus for the elderly: Evidence from the booming housing market in China," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Jaesang Sung & Qihua Qiu, 2020. "The Impact of Housing Prices on Health in the United States Before, During, and After the Great Recession," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 910-940, January.
    3. Atalay, Kadir & Li, Ang & Whelan, Stephen, 2021. "Housing wealth, fertility intentions and fertility," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Richard H. Rijnks & Stephen Sheppard, 2018. "Occupant Well-Being and House Values," Department of Economics Working Papers 2018-05, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    5. Edwin S. Wong & Vanessa M. Oddo & Jessica C. Jones-Smith, 2020. "Are Housing Prices Associated with Food Consumption?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-11, May.
    6. Tao Li & Yi-Tong Zhang & He-Wen Zhu & Peng-Ju Liu, 2022. "Floating Population, Housing Security and Family Medical Economic Risk," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    7. Bénédicte Apouey & Isabelle Chort, 2018. "Are rising house prices really good for your brain? House value and cognitive functioning among older Europeans," Working Papers hal-02141060, HAL.
    8. Moulton, Stephanie & Rhodes, Alec & Haurin, Donald & Loibl, Cäzilia, 2022. "Managing the onset of a new disease in older age: Housing wealth, mortgage borrowing, and medication adherence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    9. Chen, Zisen & James, Jonathan, 2022. "Put your FTSE down: Wealth shocks and road traffic collisions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    10. Xu, Yuanwei & Wang, Feicheng, 2022. "The health consequence of rising housing prices in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 114-137.
    11. Zhi Cai & Yan Tang & Kai Chen & Guifeng Han, 2019. "Assessing the Heat Vulnerability of Different Local Climate Zones in the Old Areas of a Chinese Megacity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-15, April.
    12. Peter Butterworth & Carmel Poyser & Aino Suomi, 2021. "Mental Health," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(4), pages 530-541, December.
    13. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca, 2022. "House prices, housing wealth and financial well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    14. Isabelle CHORT & Bénédicte APOUEY, 2018. "Are rising house prices really good for your brain? House value and cognitive functioning among older Europeans," Working Papers 2017-2018_7, CATT - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, revised Oct 2018.
    15. Tran, My & Gannon, Brenda & Rose, Christiern, 2023. "The effect of housing wealth on older adults’ health care utilization: Evidence from fluctuations in the U.S. housing market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    16. Sang Jun Eun, 2019. "Contextual Association between Political Regime and Adolescent Suicide Risk in Korea: A 12-year Repeated Cross-Sectional Study from Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-13, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Gathergood & Eleonora Fichera, 2012. "House Prices, Home Equity and Health," Discussion Papers 12/07, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    2. Eleonora Fichera & John Gathergood, 2016. "Do Wealth Shocks Affect Health? New Evidence from the Housing Boom," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 57-69, November.
    3. Oscar Erixson, 2017. "Health responses to a wealth shock: evidence from a Swedish tax reform," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 1281-1336, October.
    4. Jaesang Sung & Qihua Qiu, 2020. "The Impact of Housing Prices on Health in the United States Before, During, and After the Great Recession," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 910-940, January.
    5. Owen O'Donnell & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Tom Van Ourti, 2013. "Health and Inequality," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-170/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Sung, Jaesang, 2017. "The Impact of Housing Prices on Health in U.S. Before, During and After the Great Recession," MPRA Paper 78831, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Beomsoo Kim & Christopher J. Ruhm, 2012. "Inheritances, health and death," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 127-144, February.
    8. Shi, Xuezhu, 2022. "The health-wealth nexus for the elderly: Evidence from the booming housing market in China," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Chen, Xi & Wang, Tianyu & Busch, Susan H., 2019. "Does money relieve depression? Evidence from social pension expansions in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 411-420.
    10. Hannes Schwandt, 2018. "Wealth Shocks and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Stock Market Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 349-377, October.
    11. Maite Blázquez Cuesta & Santiago Budría, 2013. "Does income deprivation affect people’s mental well-being?," Working Papers 1312, Banco de España.
    12. Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski & Brendan John Lambe & Keshab Shrestha, 2020. "Do Stock Market Fluctuations Affect Suicide Rates?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(4), pages 737-765, December.
    13. Benedicte Apouey & Andrew E. Clark, 2015. "Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 516-538, May.
    14. Timothy Halliday, 2006. "Income Risk and Health," Working Papers 200612, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    15. Timothy Halliday, 2006. "The Impact of Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Income Shocks on Health Outcomes: Evidence from the PSID," Working Papers 200606, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    16. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00566789 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Munford, Luke A. & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2020. "Is owning your home good for your health? Evidence from exogenous variations in subsidies in England," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    18. Yilmazer, Tansel & Babiarz, Patryk & Liu, Fen, 2015. "The impact of diminished housing wealth on health in the United States: Evidence from the Great Recession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 234-241.
    19. Julien Albertini & Anthony Terriau, 2019. "Wealth and health in South Africa," Working Papers halshs-02073800, HAL.
    20. Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Sinha, Kompal, 2015. "A lifecycle perspective of stock market performance and wellbeing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 237-250.
    21. McInerney, Melissa & Mellor, Jennifer M. & Nicholas, Lauren Hersch, 2013. "Recession depression: Mental health effects of the 2008 stock market crash," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1090-1104.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:192:y:2017:i:c:p:36-48. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.