This papers examines the potential link between household credit shocks and income inequality at the national level. For a sample of 32 developed and developing countries, we show that aggregate consumption temporarily increases in the short run and decreases in the long run in the face of...

We estimate how spending in Texas responded to a 1997 constitutional amendment that relaxed severe restrictions on home equity lending. We use this event as a natural experiment to estimate the importance of credit constraints. If households are credit-constrained, such an increase in credit...

We estimate the dynamic effects of aggregate US housing market shocks on state-level retail sales and home prices from 1976 to 2008. We use a common factor VAR model to account for the dynamics of the state-level variables, and identify housing demand and supply shocks using a signs-restriction...