Financial deregulation starting in the 1980s provided families both economic opportunities and risks. Rapidly increased mortgage, credit card and other debts are out of control among many families, which arguably caused the recent great recession. The purpose of this study is to describe...

Consumer debt delinquency, as measured by being 60 or more days late in in debt payment, is an indicator of financial ill health. Using six datasets of the 1992-2007 U.S. Surveys of Consumer Finances, this study examines consumer debt delinquency over life cycle stages. Inspired by previous...

Wenli Li and Rui Yao present their recent research, which tries to quantify the effects of house-price changes on both consumption and the well-being of American households. Their study looks at the economy as a whole, as well as different demographic groups.

In this paper, we study a household’s optimal life-cycle housing choices by calibrating a model with uninsurable labor income and house price risks. In our setup, the household not only decides between renting and owning a house, but also chooses the size of its house. Borrowing is...

This article examines the factors driving the borrower's decision to terminate commercial mortgage contracts with the lender through either prepayment or default. Using loan-level data, we estimate prepayment and default functions in a proportional hazard framework with competing risks, allowing...

We develop a life-cycle model that explicitly incorporates the dual feature of housing as both a consumption good and an investment asset. Our analysis indicates that the consumption and welfare consequences of house price changes on individual households vary significantly. In particular, the...