The Engel Curve of Owner-Occupied Housing Consumption

Abstract

Housing is a major component of aggregate demand, and understanding how the demand for housing co-varies with income is useful for analysis and policy. While estimating housing consumption for tenants amounts to observing rents, estimating housing consumption for owner-occupiers is challenging because it is not directly observable and interest payments vary with re-paid principals. In order to examine the housing consumption for owner- occupiers, this article combines micro data sets on income and imputed rents for owner- occupiers based on home attributes from a consumer expenditure survey and monthly rents in a rental survey. This allows estimation of an Engel curve of owner-occupied consumption, both parametrically and non-parametrically. Regression results demonstrate that the income share of owner-occupied housing consumption decreases with income, while the Engel elasticity computed at the mean is 0.32 and increasing in income.

JEL classification codes:

• C21
• D12
• D63
• H23

Key words:

• consumption
• Engel curve
• Engel elasticity
• housing
• imputed rent
• owner-occupier