Household over-indebtedness has increased worldwide. This study investigates one possible reason for this increase: biased income expectations. Thereby, we refer to the "permanent income hypothesis", which predicts that individuals borrow more today if they expect a higher income in the future....

This study investigates the role of risk attitudes and financial expectations in households’ borrowing behaviour. The central research question is whether risk aversion and optimistic expectations provide additional information beyond the main economic and sociodemographic characteristics in...

We investigate a novel determinant of financial distress, namely individuals' self-efficacy, or belief that their actions can influence the future. Individuals with high self-efficacy are more likely to take precautions that mitigate adverse financial shocks. They are subsequently less likely to...

This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. In a lab experiment, participants can purchase goods by borrowing against their future income. We exogenously manipulate income expectations by letting income depend on relative...

This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. We show suggestive evidence for a link between overconfidence and borrowing behavior in a representative survey of German households (GSOEP-IS). This motivates a laboratory...

We study the relationship between homebuyers' beliefs about future house price changes and their mortgage leverage choices. From a theoretical perspective, whether more pessimistic homebuyers choose more or less leverage is ambiguous and depends on their willingness to reduce the size of their...

A rapid increase in household debt is undeniably a main concern among policymakers. Studies indicating the damaging effect of rapid rise in household debt towards economic growth attracted many researchers to determine its reasons. The risk from high household debt is not only applicable to...

As Korea's household debt has increased rapidly since the mid-2000s, concerns that its economy's hard-wired leveraging may negatively impact economic activity have grown. Calls are being made for policy actions to return the economy to its long-run trend. Housing preferences and monetary shocks...