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| A Study on the Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Household Leverage Ratio in China |
| RUAN Jianhong, LIU Xi, YE Huan
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| Statistics and Analysis Department, the People's Bank of China |
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Abstract The rapidly increasing leverage ratio of China's household sector has attracted more and more attention in recent years. It is of great practical significance to analyze the current household sector leverage ratio and what causes it to increase. This paper analyzes the leverage ratio and debt paying ability of Chinese households using data from household loans and a survey on urban depositors. It also empirically studies the reasons for the rapidly increasing household leverage ratio using the regional household sector leverage ratio, calculated via regional household loans.
The data demonstrate the continual rapid growth of China's household leverage ratio, which was 60.5% in 2018. The ratio has remained well above the household leverage ratios of other emerging countries. The household leverage ratio in China is lower than that of major European and American countries, but higher than that of Japan and the euro area. The household leverage ratio in China is close to the international warning line of 65%. All previous big increases in China's household leverage ratio were driven by the increase in household housing loans, which is very common during housing market expansion. Furthermore, the household leverage ratio has prominent structural problems. From the debt purpose perspective, household debt mainly consists of housing loans. From the borrower perspective, the amount of one loan contract increases as the distribution of debt becomes centralized. From the perspective of debt paying ability, some low-income households and aged populations are under greater debt pressure. From the assets and liabilities perspective, the average asset liability ratio of urban depositors in China is approximately 10% and relatively stable. However, most of the household sector's assets are concentrated in real estate. Thus, the financial asset liability ratio of China's household sector is high, reaching 37.9% in 2018.
This paper uses provincial household loan data to compute provincial household leverage ratio data and then applies the panel data model to analyze the causes of the rapidly increasing household leverage ratio. The main control variables of the model include financial development factors, population age structure, income level, social security expenditure, urbanization level and income inequality. It uses yearly data, ranging from 2007 to 2017. The results of the model show that rapid increases in housing market price and housing sales have significant positive effects on the household leverage ratio. Financial development level, the tool variable of credit availability, also has a positive effect on the household leverage ratio. Age structure has significant effects, the old-age dependency ratio has a positive effect and the adolescent dependency ratio has a negative effect on the household leverage ratio.
The data analysis and empirical study results show that the rapid increase in China's household leverage ratio is related to the fast growth of household income, the improving availability of consumption credit and the age structure of the Chinese population. They also indicate that the ratio is reasonable to some extent. However, some problems remain and require further attention, such as the uneven distribution of household leverage and the great debt pressure of some low-income households and aged populations. This paper raises four policy suggestions. First, in view of the currently uneven regional distribution of the household sector leverage ratio, it should be stabilized at the city level, not the national level. Second, housing market prices should be stabilized to prevent debt and housing loans from increasing. Third, government investment in social security should be increased to improve the debt-paying ability of low-income households and aged populations. Fourth, the management of personal loan insurance should be strengthened to ensure that borrowers' debt does not exceed their debt-paying ability.
This paper's main contribution lies in its expansion of household sector leverage ratio research through the use of provincial rather than national data. Future research should further investigate the microeconomic mechanism underlying the macro household leverage ratio.
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Received: 24 May 2019
Published: 01 September 2020
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