In an influential paper, Mian, Rao, and Sufi (2013) exploit geographic variation to measure the effect of the fall in housing net worth on household expenditures during the Great Recession. Their widely-cited estimates are based on proprietary house price and proprietary expenditure data and...

I develop an equilibrium model of housing and default to jointly analyze the effects of bankruptcy and foreclosure policies. Heterogeneous households have access to mortgages and unsecured credit and can default separately on both types of debt. I show that the interaction between foreclosure...