The study quantifies stock market and housing market wealth effects on households' non-durable consumption using Italian household panel data (SHIW) of 1989-2002. We found all households react similarly to aggregate housing and stock market gains. We also found statistically and economically...

Both personal bankruptcy and redistributive taxes can insure households' consumption risk and both vary considerably across US states. We derive sufficient conditions under which more redistributive taxation makes bankruptcy exemptions less attractive both for the intratemporal insurance and for...

Marginal income taxes may have an insurance effect by decreasing the effective fluctuations of after-tax individual income. By compressing the idiosyncratic component o personal income fluctuations, higher marginal taxes should be negatively correlated with the dispersion of consumption across...

Personal bankruptcy regulation and redistributive taxes and transfers vary considerably across U.S. states and over time. Our hypothesis is that both policies are imperfect substitutes in insuring consumption of risk-averse agents in incomplete markets. Exploiting data variation over time for 18...

Understanding the factors that influence arrears is crucial if policy makers wish to alleviate the problems caused by debt. But conventional estimates of repayment behaviour impose implausible assumptions about lender behaviour. However, an upper and lower bound for the effect of the...

Academic research and policy discussions of credit markets usually focus on borrowing by firms and producers rather than by households, which are typically analyzed in terms of their savings and portfolio choices. The Economics of Consumer Credit brings together leading international researchers...

Academic research and policy discussions of credit markets usually focus on borrowing by firms and producers rather than by households, which are typically analyzed in terms of their savings and portfolio choices. The Economics of Consumer Credit brings together leading international researchers...

Marginal income taxes may have an insurance effect by decreasing the effective fluctuations of after-tax individual income. By compressing the idiosyncratic component o personal income fluctuations, higher marginal taxes should be negatively correlated with the dispersion of consumption across...