House financing has played a prominent role in advanced economies. In addition, most of the banking crises in advanced economies were associated with boom-bust cycles in house prices. Prominent researchers suggest that more grants for household debt reduction would have provided a significant...

We investigate the consequences of overleveraging and the potential for destabilizing effects from financial- and real-sector interactions. In a theoretical framework, we model overleveraging and indicate how a highly leveraged banking system can lead to unstable dynamics and downward spirals....