Bartscher, Alina Kristin; Kuhn, Moritz; Schularick, Moritz - 2020 - This version: May 2, 2020
This paper studies the secular increase in U.S. household debt and its relation to growing income inequality and … financial fragility. We exploit a new household-level dataset that covers the joint distributions of debt, income, and wealth in … income growth played a central role in rising indebtedness. Debt-to-income ratios have risen most dramatically for households …