We use data for nearly 800,000 Danish families to examine whether high household leverage prior to the financial crisis may have amplified the reduction in household spending over the course of the crisis. We find a strong negative correlation between pre-crisis leverage and the change in...

Did the financial crisis spread from distressed banks to households through a contraction of the credit supply? We study this question with a dataset that contains observations on all accounts in Danish banks as well as comprehensive information about individual account holders and banks. We...