What is a peer dependency
Here is some useful reading on dependency types, and here is info on peer dependencies, but to summarize:
Dependency: A library/package your project needs to run.
Peer dependency: Used to indicate a library/package your project will hook in to.
The package vue-loader has a peer dependency on vue-template-compiler – vue-loader acts as a plugin for vue-template-compiler
Why aren’t peer dependencies installed by default
Peer dependencies were automatically installed up until npm@3 (which yarn has followed in). This was stopped due to frequently confusing behavior. For example, installing another plugin with a conflicting requirement would result in an error.
We will also be changing the behavior of peerDependencies in npm@3. We won’t be automatically downloading the peer dependency anymore. Instead, we’ll warn you if the peer dependency isn’t already installed. This requires you to resolve peerDependency conflicts yourself, manually, but in the long run this should make it less likely that you’ll end up in a tricky spot with your packages’ dependencies. [Feb 13, 2015]
Update
As per here npm@7 now installs peer dependencies.
For the motivation behind this decision see here