After the crisis, from 2008 to 2010 the share of indebted households decreased both owing to a reduction in loan demand and stricter supply conditions. The reduction regarded mortgages and involved low-income households and the self-employed. Recourse to consumer credit remained stable; it...

Which households use consumer credit? This paper addresses the question using harmonized data from Eurostat's EU-SILC survey for nine European countries in the period 2005-08. There is wide heterogeneity in participation in the consumer credit market, ranging from 15 to 46 per cent across...

Using information on about 2 million house purchase loans to households, this paper analyses the effects of the financial crisis on this portion of the credit market. From 2008 to 2011 the total number and value of new mortgages decreased sharply. The results show that young households and...

The paper presents the main results of the Eurosystem's Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with an emphasis on the data for Italy in the international context. The paper examines households' socio-demographic characteristics, assets and income distribution, participation in real and...

The issue of the importance of financial constraints in hampering the birth of new entrepreneurs is still debated. One of the way to identify financial constraints is to look at the importance of household wealth in the decision to become an entrepreneur. In the absence of correlation between...

In the absence of any correlation between wealth and entrepreneurial talent, initial net wealth should have an explanatory power in the decision to become an entrepreneur only for households that are financially constrained; further, its importance should decrease with wealth. I test these...