Financial liberalisation, consumption and wealth effects in seven OECD countries

We estimate the impact of financial liberalisation on consumption in seven major industrial countries, and find a marked shift in behaviour, notably a decline in short-run income elasticities and a rise in short-run wealth and interest rate elasticities. A corollary is that consumption equations estimated over both pre- and post-liberalisation regimes may be misleading, and either a form of testing as presented here or a shortening of the sample period may be appropriate for accurate forecasting and simulation.