The level of household debt has risen in many countries, including Austria. This study examines whether the increased level of debt represents a risk to financial stability. The data used are mainly derived from a survey on households’ financial wealth conducted by the Oesterreichische...

This paper depicts � from a variety of viewpoints � the degree of indebtedness and potential financial vulnerabilities of households across the Italian regions. Micro-data from several sources suggest that the financial situation of Italian households shows striking differences at...

Using a unique dataset of home equity credit contracts, we examine the benefits of joint liability lending. Our results show that the risk of default for joint borrowers with similar risk scores is significantly lower than the risk associated with single borrowers. However, when joint borrowers...

Whereas recent studies on revolving lines of credit suggest a positive relationship between exposure at default and default probability on the line, this paper considers the relationship between two financial instruments through the simultaneous analysis of credit line utilization and default...

This paper analyzes lenders' pricing strategies in the business-to-customer (B2C) unsecured loan market by using a proprietary dataset of approximately 3 million unsecured consumer loans from a B2C online retailer in China. We find that lenders' decisions to invite customers are based on...

Individuals and firms pledge collateral to mitigate agency costs or contracting frictions in a world with asymmetric information. However, the option value theory suggests that once the mark-to-market asset valuation is below the current debt, the firms and individuals should default on their...

This paper investigates the role of loan contract terms in the performance of consumer credit. Taking advantage of a sample of accepted and rejected consumer loans from a Czech commercial bank, I estimate the elasticity of loan demand and find that borrowers with a high probability of default...

This paper introduces a framework to jointly account for the affordability of the periodic repayment of the housing debt (income constraint) and of the initial deposit (budget constraint). An application to 2006-2012 micro-data on Italian households indicates that the improvement in the ability...

Using new household-level data, we quantitatively assess the roles that job loss, negative equity, and wealth (including unsecured debt, liquid assets, and illiquid assets) play in default decisions. In sharp contrast to prior studies that proxy for individual unemployment status using regional...