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Abstract A large share of material flows and stocks in modern economies serve household needs, either directly through consumption or indirectly through supporting infrastructure and services. We show how household stocks (dwellings, holiday homes, and cars) correlate to household material footprints, combining accumulated material stocks with input-output analysis for footprints in a cross-sectional framework. Larger household stocks are associated with increases in material footprints at the per capita level, with elasticities around 0.1 after accounting for income, household size, and wealth effects. Wealth is more linked to stocks, whereas income is more related to footprints, indicating that financial stocks and flows correspond to distinct material dimensions of households. Correlations among stocks are weak, yet the association between single and multi-family housing stock and car units highlight interactions between building and vehicle stocks. While smaller dwellings can reduce material stock demand, reductions driven by solo living in apartment buildings may offset these benefits as they do not reduce the dwelling material stock in per capita terms. Our findings suggest a reinforcing feedback loop between household material stocks and consumption, where accumulation fosters further demand for resources.
Sborz et al. (Tue,) studied this question.