Wealth Effect
자산효과
A macroeconomic mechanism by which changes in asset values influence consumer spending behavior. When stock or housing prices rise, households perceive an increase in net worth (even without changes in actual income) and increase consumption; conversely, spending contracts when asset prices fall. According to a 2026 Bank of Korea study, Korea's stock wealth effect converts roughly 1.3% of capital gains into consumption, smaller than the 3–4% observed in the U.S. and Europe, though it has been expanding as stock-market participation broadens.
In depth
Theoretical Origins
The wealth effect concept traces back to Arthur Cecil Pigou's 1943 article 'The Classical Stationary State,' where he proposed the 'real balance effect': during deflation, rising real money balances stimulate consumption, allowing the economy to self-correct toward full employment, a critique of Keynes's thesis of deficient effective demand. Don Patinkin coined the term 'Pigou effect' in 1948. Modern macroeconomics later generalized this into the broader 'wealth effect,' encompassing housing equity and stock holdings.
The Korean Context
In South Korea, the wealth effect has drawn attention since the 2020s as a key mechanism distorting the Consumer Composite Sentiment Index (CCSI), alongside KOSPI rallies and real-estate price surges. The Bank of Korea's consumer survey (2,500 households) does not control for asset ownership, so the wealth-effect experience of stock-owning households (roughly 15–20% of the total) structurally lifts the aggregate CCSI. In 2025, household stock capital gains reached 429 trillion won (22 times the historical average) and the influx of younger and lower-income cohorts into the stock market has widened the wealth effect's reach.
Political-Economic Critique
The wealth effect is a class mechanism: it asymmetrically shapes consumption-sentiment statistics between asset-owning strata and those without. The simultaneous occurrence of all-time KOSPI highs and 23 consecutive months of declining manufacturing employment exposes a structure in which asset markets colonize sentiment statistics and statistically erase working-class conditions. The June 2026 CCSI of 106.6 (surveyed June 9–16) reflected the wealth effect of peak KOSPI values, but the KOSPI crash of −9.99% on June 23, seven days after the survey closed, was entirely absent from the index. This time-lag distortion turns the wealth effect into a lagging shadow of asset-price movements, not a signal from the real economy.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) 기본 정의: 자산효과는 인지된 부의 변화에 수반되는 지출 변화 (the change in spending that accompanies a change in perceived wealth).
- Wikipedia (EN) 이론적 기원: 피구의 실질잔고효과(1943)와 파틴킨의 명명(1948).
- bok.or.kr 한국은행 BOK 이슈노트 제2026-10호 「우리나라 주식 자산효과에 대한 평가」: 주가 1만원 상승 시 자본이득의 1.3% 소비 전환, 가계 주식자산 소득대비 77%, 2025년 자본이득 429조원.
- bis.org Edward M. Gramlich (FRB), 'Consumption and the wealth effect: The United States and the United Kingdom' (2002): 자산 1달러 추가 시 소비 3~5센트 증가, 주택자산과 주식자산의 한계소비성향 비교.