Assets and Debts in a Consumer Portfolio

Data from the 1977–78 Survey of Consumer Credit provide the opportunity to estimate demand functions for owned housing, home mortgages, car stocks, car debts, and other debts in the context of a portfolio model with both own‐ and cross‐partial adjustments. Consequently, information is gained as to how households adjust their demands for owned housing, mortgage, car stocks, car loans, and other debts in response to disequilibria in their asset and debt portfolio. Married with spouse present, female headed, and black families are studied separately. Income, life‐cycle, and family size effects are estimated as well as the speeds of adjustment to various disequilibria.