How does the design of debt repayment schedules affect household borrowing? To answer this question, we exploit a … as the primary explanation. We develop a model to evaluate the mechanisms driving household behavior and find that much … that mortgage contracts with low initial payments substantially increase household borrowing and lifetime interest costs. …

Household debt has risen markedly since the turn of the century and stands at a historically high level in most OECD … countries. This paper offers an overview of developments in household debt over the past decades across a large sample of OECD … household debt for households, the financial system and the wider economy. Finally, it describes the challenges faced by …

The goal of this paper is to show that household-level financial distress (FD) varies greatly, meaning there is unequal …

Historically high household debt in several economies is calling for a deleveraging, but according to some economists …, this paper finds evidence of a negative relationship between changes of household debt-to-income ratios and saving rates … suggest that the economic cost associated with household deleveraging may be overestimated and motivate a deleveraging via …