1887

OECD Economics Department Working Papers

Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.

The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.

English, French

Asset Prices and Real Economic Activity

A survey of the literature on asset price impacts on the real economy shows a much wider range of work on consumption and related wealth effects than on investment. The existence of wealth effects on consumption is little contested, but there remains an issue of whether different effects should hold between countries and across assets. There is less empirical work available on investment, partly reflecting poor results for Tobin?s Q, the user cost of capital and the financial accelerator. Panel investment functions for up to 23 OECD countries are estimated. Significant asset price effects from the financial accelerator and Tobin?s Q are found especially for the G7 countries as well as uncertainty effects as proxied by asset price volatility, but they only matter for the smaller OECD countries.

English

Keywords: asset prices, Tobin's Q, credit channel, wealth effect on consumption, uncertainty, aggregate fixed investment, financial accelerator
JEL: F31: International Economics / International Finance / Foreign Exchange; E44: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Money and Interest Rates / Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy; G31: Financial Economics / Corporate Finance and Governance / Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies; Capacity; E22: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy / Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
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