The drivers of household indebtedness reconsidered: An empirical evaluation of competing arguments on the macroeconomic determinants of household indebtedness in OECD countries (original) (raw)
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Review of Behavioral Economics
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The article analyses the rise in household indebtedness from the point of view of its causes and long-run macroeconomic implications. The analysis is focussed on the US case. Differently from life-cycle interpretations of the phenomenon, and from interpretations in terms of erratic deviations of current income flows from their longrun trend, the rising household debt is viewed as the outcome of persistent changes in income distribution and growing income inequalities. Through household debt, low wages appear to have been brought to coexist with relatively high levels of aggregate demand, thus providing the solution to the contradiction between the necessity of high and rising consumption levels, for the growth of the system's actual output, and a framework of antagonistic conditions of distribution which keeps within limits the real income of the vast majority of society. The question of the longrun sustainability of this substitution of loans for wages is finally discussed.
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We confirm the negative relationship between household debt and future GDP growth documented in Mian, Sufi, and Verner (2017) for a wider set of countries over the period 1950-2016. Three mutually reinforcing mechanisms help explain this relationship. First, debt overhang impairs household consumption when negative shocks hit. Second, increases in household debt heighten the probability of future banking crises, which significantly disrupts financial intermediation. Third, crash risk may be systematically neglected due to investors' overoptimistic expectations associated with household debt booms. In addition, several institutional factors such as flexible exchange rates, higher financial development and inclusion are found to mitigate this impact. Finally, the tradeoff between financial inclusion and stability nuances downside risks to growth.
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We use household panel data to explore the link between changes in house prices and household indebtedness (both secured on housing assets and unsecured) in the United Kingdom. We show that households which are borrowing-constrained by a lack of housing equity as collateral make greater use of unsecured debt such as credit cards or personal loans. In response to rising house prices, which relax this constraint, such households are more likely to refinance and to increase their indebtedness relative to unconstrained households. However, for most households, house price movements appear to have little impact on indebtedness.
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Finance, Growth and Inequality, 2019
A growing recent literature has examined the macroeconomic implications of household debt. Recent analysis has linked household debt to rising inequality across developed economies leading to stagnant or declining real incomes for middle and lower income households. Wages stagnated with their decoupling from productivity growth and rising inequality; households maintained consumption with falling savings and rising indebtedness. This consumption behaviour can be understood in terms of emulation of consumption patterns through a relative income effect. A range of authors have argued household debt was central to the global financial crisis. More generally it has been argued that with rising inequality aggregate demand was only been sustained by this process of rising household indebtedness before the crisis and since then recovery has been held back by limited growth in household incomes and such recovery as has been achieved has generated by renewed rises in household debt.
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The short-term effects of cooling housing markets on consumption and financial institutions" profitability and capital have so far not been as bad as had been feared by many observers. There are vulnerabilities of specific groups of households, but the sector as a whole does not seem to be exposed to large risks. As a result, broader financial stability risks arising from the current situation appear to be limited, at least over the short term. Nonetheless, the situation in household balance sheets bears monitoring and the potential for problems to emerge in the longer term should not be overlooked. Households may take on too much debt, as they may not only overestimate their subsequent income growth, but also underestimate the long-term risks that they face, including those related to their retirement income financing. 193
It takes two to tango: mortgage markets, labor markets and rising household debt in Europe
Review of International Political Economy, 2020
Household mortgage debt unleashed devastating consequences for the global economy in 2007–2008. Despite the growing importance of household debt in financial markets, international political economy and comparative political economy have not theorized why it varies so much across Europe. We argue that variation in household debt can be explained by the intersection of two domestic institutions: labor market institutions (and by extension the welfare state) that enable households to withstand negative employment/income shocks, and mortgage finance institutions that govern households’ credit access. We empirically demonstrate via a panel analysis of 17 advanced capitalist democracies that the impact of these institutions on household debt is co-dependent. Strong collective bargaining institutions (and generous welfare states), which protect borrowers from income and employment insecurity, are associated with higher household indebtedness, but only if housing finance institutions that encourage mortgage lending are present (i.e. in Scandinavia and the Netherlands). In contrast, liberal (financialized) economies have comparatively lower household indebtedness because their labor market institutions inhibit income security for borrowers. As household debt becomes more central to comparative political economy, our findings suggest that scholars who study financialization need to integrate labor market (and welfare state) institutions into their analysis to understand how domestic financial systems function.