Household Debt and Credit: Economic Issues and Data Problems

US and European Household Debt and Credit Constraints

This paper uses micro data from four OECD countries (the United States, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands), to assess the determinants of household debt holding and to investigate whether or not credit constraints are important for household debt holding. We extend the existing literature in important ways. First, we present comparative evidence for four countries at the micro level, where we r...

Debt and Deficits: Some Measurement, Economic and Political Issues

Household Debt: What the Data Show

Over the past decade, the debt of the household sector has increased at an average annual rate of 14 per cent, which is well in excess of the growth of household income. As a result, the ratio of household debt to household disposable income in Australia has risen from a level that was low by international standards to one that is in the upper end of the range of other industrial countries. Thi...

Household debt and social interactions

Debt-induced crises, including the subprime, are usually attributed exclusively to supply-side factors. We examine the role of social influences on debt culture, emanating from perceived average income of peers. Utilizing unique information from a household survey representative of the Dutch population, that circumvents the issue of defining the social circle, we consider collateralized, consum...

US and European Household Debt and Credit Constraints: Comparative Micro Evidence from the Last 15 Years

Household debt levels have increased substantially over the last decade, both in terms of the total amount outstanding and relative to incomes. At the same time, household debt portfolios became more diversified. While such qualitative observations apply to many OECD countries, the betweencountry differences remain very stark and are empirically more important than changes over time within any ...