This paper demonstrates that credit reporting -- banks observing households' default histories -- can cause slow recoveries of housing prices and employment from mortgage crises. Comparing credit cycles with and without credit reporting and capturing the impact of mortgage default on employment...

In this paper, we evaluate Danish homeowners' interest-rate sensitivity in terms of the partial effect of a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates on homeowners cash flows and balance sheets. We construct two measures to quantify the effect of an increase in interest rates on homeowners....

Buying a house changes a household's balance sheet by simultaneously reducing liquidity and introducing mortgage payments, which may leave the household more exposed to other shocks. We find that this change affects credit card use in two ways: A debt effect increases credit card spending, while...

During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the U.S. varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. We find that financial distress among U.S. households amplified the sensitivity of consumption to house-price shocks. We uncover two essential facts: (1) the...

Using Danish household level data, we find that a relatively large share of total interest-only mortgage debt is held by families with few liquid assets and high loan to value ratios. This may arise because families with interest-only loans do not fully use the lower instalments to increase...

This research investigated the relationship between increasing housing prices (or housing wealth) and the increased consumption expenditure of households from before the GFC and afterwards. The analysis revealed that following the GFC, old and middle-aged households showing slightly lower...

In this paper, we analyze the borrowing behavior of Japanese households in comparison to the other Group of Seven (G7) countries and also broken down by the age group of the household head. We find that pre-retirement households (households with a head in the 50-59 age group) in Japan do not...

Does household leverage matter for worker job search, matching in the labor market, and wages? Theoretically, household leverage can have opposing effects on the labor market through debt-overhang and liquidity constraint channels. To test which channel dominates empirically, we exploit the...

Large-scale debt forbearance is a key policy tool during crises, yet targeting is challenging due to information asymmetries. Using transaction-level data from a Portuguese bank during COVID-19, we find that financially fragile households are more likely to enter forbearance, irrespective of...