In developing countries, banks play a major role by acting as a conduit for the effective mobilization of funds from the surplus sectors of an economy for onward lending to the deficit sectors for productive investments that will in turn increase the level of employment and economic growth....

The worst employment slumps tend to follow the largest expansions of household debt. In this paper, we theoretically investigate an amplification mechanism by which debt on household balance sheets distorts labor market search behavior, leading to deeper employment slumps. Using a competitive...

U.S. consumption has gone through steep ups and downs since 2000, but the causes of these fluctuations are still imperfectly identified. We quantify the relative statistical impact of income, unemployment, house prices, credit scores, debt, expectations, foreclosures, inequality, and...