We examine to what extent mortgage lending is characterized by strong relationships between banks and their borrowers. Our analysis is based on survey data covering all current bank relations for a sample of 1,481 Swiss households out of which 687 have a mortgage. We document that mortgage...

We analyze the effect of import competition on household balance sheets from 2000 to 2007 using individual data on consumer finances. We exploit variation in exposure to foreign competition using industry-level shipping costs and initial differences in regions' industry specialization. We show...

We study the spending response of first-time borrowers to an overdraft facility and elicit their preferences, beliefs, and motives through a FinTech application. Users increase their spending permanently, lower their savings rate, and reallocate spending from non-discretionary to discretionary...

This paper outlines a stress testing framework for the household sector in Malta based on micro data. The analysis depends on granular data relating to income, expenses, and the value of liquid assets from the third wave of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey and assesses the financial...

Lack of privacy due to surveillance of personal data, which is becoming ubiquitous around the world, induces persistent conformity to the norms prevalent under the surveillance regime. We document this channel in a unique laboratory-the widespread surveillance of private citizens in East...

This paper complements macroeconomic indicators for macroprudential policy with information from microeconomic survey data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), to identify pockets of risk in the Belgian mortgage market. It takes into account distributional aspects of debt...

We examine the role of trust in households' decisions to hold a bank account and to switch to a new bank. We explore Italian household-level data that contain restricted information on the banks that the households are doing business with, as well as measures of trust in the households' main...

This paper uses representative individual household data from Luxembourg to evaluate how severe economic conditions could affect bank exposure to the household sector. Information on household income, expenses and liquid assets are used to calculate household-specific probabilities of default...

Excessive household borrowing has been identified as an important determinant of financial crises. Borrower-based macroprudential instruments have been proposed as a possible remedy. In Germany, two instruments have been available to macroprudential supervisors since 2017: a cap on the...

We study the exposure of mortgage borrowers in Switzerland to interest rate, income and house price risks and examine how the households' choice of risky mortgages is related to individual interest rate expectations and risk-aversion. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of household...