We review early evidence on how household consumption behavior has evolved over the pandemic and how different groups of households have responded to fiscal stimulus programs. Due to the scarcity of evidence for Europe, our review focuses on evidence from the US. Notwithstanding the...

We study how homeowners' consumption responds to a negative and anticipated disposable income shock: the beginning of the amortisation period on interest-only mortgages. We identify spending behavior through an event study approach, by matching loan-level data that covers the universe of Danish...

This paper studies the direct impact of households' debt on consumption over the business cycle. We use household-level panel data for Spain, and focus on a interesting period of analysis, 2002-2017, characterized by large variations in leverage, consumption, and asset prices. We find that debt...

We examine how the fear of COVID-19 contagion influences consumer expenditure patterns. We show that the consumption expenditure responses to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are significantly heterogeneous across generations. We find that the elderly spend less than the younger generation by...

This paper examines how households adjusted their consumption behavior in response to COVID-19 infection risk during the early phase of the pandemic. We use a monthly consumption survey specifically designed by the German Statistical Office covering the second wave of COVID-19 infections from...

We study life insurance market responses to Covid-19 using unique national administrative data from Israel on purchases and cancellations of life insurance policies, and an internet survey of Americans' life insurance choices, risk attitudes, Covid-19 perceptions, and vaccination behavior. We...

We use monthly credit card data from the Federal Reserve's Y-14M reports to study the early impact of the COVID-19 shock on the use and availability of consumer credit. First, we find that in counties severely affected by the pandemic, creditworthy borrowers reduce their credit card balances and...

In this paper, we analyze the borrowing behavior of Japanese households in comparison to the other Group of Seven (G7) countries and also broken down by the age group of the household head. We find that pre-retirement households (households with a head in the 50-59 age group) in Japan do not...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest channel by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment. We show that rational,...

Household borrowing and spending rise with house prices, particularly for leveraged households, but household spending is not consumption. We propose an alternative borrow-to-invest motive by which house price gains affect household spending on residential investment: rational, leveraged...