A standard, no-recourse mortgage contract does not adjust when the value of the underlying collateral falls. Consequently, shocks that lower house prices may trigger one of the necessary conditions for default: negative equity. A common alternative contract attempts to prevent default by...

We study how changes in interest rates affect the borrowing of households and the distribution of debt within the population. In a model of household borrowing with credit constraints and endogenous house prices, we show that less constrained households with more pre-existing housing wealth...