Non disponibile in italiano
Ernesto Villanueva
- 20 February 2014
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1639Details
- Abstract
- The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we present an up-to-date assessment of the differences across euro area countries in the distributions of various measures of debt conditional on household characteristics. We consider three different outcomes: the probability of holding debt, the amount of debt held and, in the case of secured debt, the interest rate paid on the main mortgage. Second, we examine the role of legal and economic institutions in accounting for these differences. We use data from the first wave of a new survey of household finances, the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, to achieve these aims. We find that the patterns of secured and unsecured debt outcomes vary markedly across countries. Among all the institutions considered the length of asset repossession periods best accounts for the features of the distribution of secured debt. In countries with longer repossession periods, the fraction of people who borrow is smaller, the youngest group of households borrow lower amounts (conditional on borrowing), and the mortgage interest rates paid by low-income households are higher. Regulatory loan-to-value ratios, the taxation of mortgages and the prevalence of interest-only or fixed rate mortgages deliver less robust results.
- JEL Code
- D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation
K35 : Law and Economics→Other Substantive Areas of Law→Personal Bankruptcy Law - Network
- Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN)
- 28 February 2011
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1297Details
- Abstract
- Economic theory predicts that the consumption path of unconstrained home owners responds to the interest rate, while the consumption path of credit constrained home owners is determined by the size and timing of payments (mortgage maturity). We exploit the rapid expansion of mortgage markets during the last decade in Spain and a very detailed survey on household finances to estimate group-specific consumption responses to changes in the credit conditions. Our estimates suggest that the consumption of households headed by an individual with high school responds more to mortgage maturity than to the interest rate spread. The consumption of the rest of indebted households is insensitive to loan maturity. Those results are confirmed when we instrument loan maturity exploiting the fact that banks are reluctant to offer contracts with age at maturity above 65. An interpretation of those results is that households headed by middle education individuals, 8% of our sample, behave as credit constrained.
- JEL Code
- D91 : Microeconomics→Intertemporal Choice→Intertemporal Household Choice, Life Cycle Models and Saving
- Network
- Conference on household finance and consumption
- 9 January 2009
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 100Details
- Abstract
- The first part of this paper provides a brief survey of the recent literature that employs survey data on household finance and consumption. Given the breadth of the topic, it focuses on issues that are particularly relevant for policy, namely: i) wealth effects on consumption, ii) housing prices and household indebtedness, iii) retirement income, consumption and pension reforms, iv) access to credit and credit constraints, v) financial innovation, consumption smoothing and portfolio selection and vi) wealth inequality. The second part uses concrete examples to summarise how results from such surveys feed into policy-making within the central banks that already conduct such surveys.
- JEL Code
- C42 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics→Survey Methods
D12 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance - Network
- Eurosystem Monetary Transmission Network