This paper investigates the role of children in explaining the life-cycle pattern of consumption (which is hump-shaped since it is higher in the middle of life and lower at the beginning and end of life). Unlike previous studies, a true panel of U.K. households was exploited to investigate...

This paper looks at arrears among US households between 1995 and 2013. It uses household data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) where arrears occur when a household reports it “sometimes got behind or missed a payment”. The key contribution is that it decomposes the change in...