Household indebtedness has grown sharply in the United Kingdom in recent years. This paper proposes a framework for understanding this based on a model in which households are assumed to plan their lifetime spending rationally, allowing for bequests to future generations. The model is set up to...

This article summarises the main results of a survey carried out for the Bank in September 2004 about household borrowing, housing wealth and attitudes to debt. The survey was designed to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of household indebtedness. It found significant differences...

This paper shows how a Merton-model approach can be used to develop measures of the probability of failure of quoted UK companies. Probability estimates are constructed for a group of failed companies and their properties as leading indicators of failure assessed. Probability estimates of...

Household indebtedness has grown sharply in the United Kingdom in recent years. This paper proposes a framework for understanding this based on a model in which households are assumed to plan their lifetime spending rationally, allowing for bequests to future generations. The model is set up to...

In this paper it is shown how a Merton-model approach can be used to develop measures of the probability of failure of individual quoted UK companies. Probability estimates are then constructed for a group of failed companies and their properties as leading indicators of failure assessed....