2014年经济学人 家庭财富 资产负债表的繁荣（在线收听）

Household wealth

The balance-sheet boom

Household wealth, and debt, is forecast to swell in 2015

WITH the excesses of Christmas nearly over, Britons are planning their budgets for the new year. Their decisions will be crucial for the economy. After paying down debts to repair their balance-sheets in the years after the financial crisis, consumers are spending again. Yet wealth, like wages, remains lower than in 2007. A recovery in riches is an essential component of official forecasts for further growth.

When the financial crisis hit, wealth immediately suffered (unlike real wages, which hardly budged in 2008 but have fallen every year since). Household net worth—ie, assets minus debts—plummeted by 12% in 2008, driven by a 13% fall in housing wealth, which makes up just under half of all household assets. The hole is not yet filled: adjusting for inflation, housing wealth—168,000 ($261,000) per household—remains 13% below its pre-crisis peak. Financial wealth, which includes investments in stocks and shares, has fared slightly better, but is still down 4% on 2007.

As a result, households reduced their debts from 2008. Savings jumped from around 7% of income pre-crisis to 11% by 2010. By 2013 the average household had 62,000 worth of debt, down 16% in real terms on 2007. Largely as a result of this frugality, household net worth, which averaged 320,000 in 2013, has recovered about half its losses from the crisis.

That suggests that balance-sheets are not fully patched up. Yet consumers have been spending more; since 2013 saving has hovered around its pre-crisis level. And forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Britain's fiscal watchdog, see it falling further still, from 6.6% of income in 2014 to 5.4% in 2015 and then 4.8% by 2019.

Several factors lie behind the reversal. Better employment prospects mean workers are less in need of rainy-day funds. They might also expect wage growth and want to borrow against that future income. But the most significant factor is recent house-price growth, which boosts homeowners' wealth without them needing to save. House prices are up 17.5% on average since 2012 (30% in London) and the OBR reckons a further rise of 7.4% is on the cards in 2015.

It was a housing boom that allowed the aggregate debt-to-income ratio to reach a record high of close to 170% before the crisis. The OBR now forecasts another balance-sheet boom, with debt surpassing its pre-crisis high in 2017 and reaching 184% of income by 2020.

This is troubling. If puffed-up house prices prove temporary—as in 2007—high debt could leave households vulnerable and harm the financial system. Housing is illiquid, meaning that in a crisis fire-sales can cause prices to fall rapidly. Even at current levels—146% of income—the Bank of England rightly frets about household debt, and in October limited the number of high-risk mortgages banks can issue (the market has cooled slightly since). The bank's concern makes the OBR's forecast look either wrong or terrifying.

In addition, saving is lower than the figures suggest, according to a recent working paper by John Ralfe, a pensions consultant, and Bernard Casey of Warwick University. The (recently revised) statistics fail to count pension payouts as running down savings. Adjust for this and the savings rate fell to -0.2% in 2013 and will become more sharply negative if the OBR forecast is borne out. So much for an end to Christmas excess.