This paper produces new evidence and stylised facts on housing, wealth accumulation and wealth distribution, relying on an in-depth analysis of micro-based data on household wealth across OECD countries. The analysis addresses several questions: i) How is homeownership and housing tenure...

3.6 million more older American households have a mortgage than 2000, contributing to an increase in mortgage usage among the elderly of thirty-nine percent. Rather than collecting imputed rent, older households are borrowing against home equity, potentially with loan terms that exceed their...

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...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest motive by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment: rational, leveraged...

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...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest channel by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment. We show that rational,...

We examine the extent to which owner-occupiers in their 50s and 60s change their private pension saving when they complete repayment of the mortgage on their primary residence. Using panel data from a household survey, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we identify those who completed...

Using administrative data on mortgages issued in Italy between 2018 and 2019, this paper estimates loan demand elasticities to maturity and interest rate. We find that households are responsive to both contract terms: a 1% decrease in interest rate increases the average loan size by 0.22%...

We analyze Fannie Mae's experience with the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage product. From 1993-2010, Fannie Mae acquired 492,465 of these loans, representing 75% of the total market. During this period, prior to recent program changes, credit screening was not an element in the underwriting...

The role, informative or persuasive, of brand names in driving purchasing decisions is very much under debate. We exploit the rebranding of a mortgage lender to analyse households’ choice behaviour in response to brand popularity. Loan-level data on new mortgages suggest that (1) brand...