In this paper, I conduct an international comparison of the financial health of households using data on household wealth and indebtedness for the Group of Seven (G7) countries and show that, even though household borrowings in Japan were the highest among the G7 countries, at least until 2000,...

This paper studies the heterogeneity of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth (MPC) both across and within countries. We estimate the MPC based on a cross-country harmonized household level dataset which combines surveys on wealth, income and consumption. We use panel regressions and...

We measure consumers' readiness to face emergency expenses. Based on data from a representative survey of US consumers, we find that financial readiness varies widely across consumers, with lowest-income, least-educated, unemployed, and black consumers most likely to have $0 saved for emergency...

We use internationally comparable household-level data for ten euro area economies and the United States to investigate cross-country differences in debt holdings and the potential of debt overhang. U.S. households have the highest prevalence of both collateralized and non-collateralized debt,...

We use sizeable lottery prizes in Norwegian administrative panel data to characterize households' marginal propensities to consume (MPCs). Our main contribution is to document how MPCs vary with household characteristics and prize size, and how lottery prizes are spent and saved over time. We...

In this paper, I conduct an international comparison of the financial health of households using data on household wealth and indebtedness for the Group of Seven (G7) countries and show that, even though household borrowings in Japan were the highest among the G7 countries, at least until 2000,...

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...

We study determinants of households' unsecured credit limits using the Survey of Consumer Finances between 2001 and 2016. We estimate the marginal effects of demographic characteristics and financial health conditions in a two stage least squares model, resolving the endogeneity from the...

The results from the second wave of the Eurosysystem's Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) indicate that Cyprus households experienced very large falls in their incomes and value of real assets between 2009/2010 and 2013/2014. However, despite their worsening financial situation...