A tighter monetary policy is generally associated with higher real interest rates on deposits and loans, weaker performance of equities and real estate, and slower growth in employment and wages. How does a household's exposure to monetary policy vary with its age? The size and composition of both household income and asset portfolios exhibit large variation over the lifecycle in Japanese data. We formulate an overlapping generations model that reproduces these observations and use it to analyze how household responses to monetary policy shocks vary over the lifecycle. Both the signs and the magnitudes of the responses of a household's net worth, disposable income and consumption depend on its age.
Keywords: Monetary policy; Lifecycle; Portfolio choice; Nominal government debt
Views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Japan or Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies.