While recent literature has pointed out that migrants ́remittances have a positive impact on savings with financial institutions, findings with respect to access to and the use of loans have been ambiguous. This paper investigates whether the reception of remittances facilitates taking up loans...

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we present an up-to-date assessment of the differences across euro area countries in the distributions of various measures of debt conditional on household characteristics. We consider three different outcomes: the probability of holding debt, the amount...

We study consumer debt relief as a tool of distributive politics and ask if debt relief can influence elections. We utilize quasi-experimental variation generated by a very large debt relief program enacted in the Republic of Georgia by a private foundation that affected every sixth voter. We...

This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. In a lab experiment, participants can purchase goods by borrowing against their future income. We exogenously manipulate income expectations by letting income depend on relative...

Many governments operate consumer debt relief programs, often timed to match the election cycle, but their political effects are not well understood. We ask if debt relief can influence elections in democracies. Our motivating exercise is the Biden administration’s promise to relieve student...

We study the role of household saving behaviour, of individual motives for saving and that of perceived liquidity constraints in 15 Euro Area countries. The empirical analysis is based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, a new harmonized data set collecting detailed information on...

Household indebtedness is rising worldwide. This study investigates one possible driver of this increase that is rooted in the theory of permanent income: high income expectations. We collect data from an emerging country, Thailand, as (over-) indebtedness in markets with incomplete financial...

Excessive household borrowing has been identified as an important determinant of financial crises. Borrower-based macroprudential instruments have been proposed as a possible remedy. In Germany, two instruments have been available to macroprudential supervisors since 2017: a cap on the...

We estimate the "unhedged interest rate exposure" (URE) of euro area households. The URE is a welfare metric that captures the extent to which households are exposed to changes in real interest rates, and reflects the direct gains and losses in interest income flows incurred by households after...