The additional growth in spending of recent years that has accompanied these wealth gains as well as other supporting influences on the economy appears to have been met in about equal measure from increased net imports and from goods and services produced by the net increase in newly hired workers over and above the normal growth of the work force, including a substantial net inflow of workers from abroad.
Essays in memory of Albert Ando, Edward Elgar, London, 2006. 5  J. Muellbauer, “Housing, credit and consumer expenditure”, paper presented to the Kansas City Federal st st Reserve’s Jackson Hole Symposium, 31 August – 1 September 2007; C. Carroll, M. Otsuka and J. Slacalek, “How large is the housing wealth effect? A new approach”, Johns Hopkins University Economics Working Paper 535, 2006.