Work

Households' indebtedness and financial fragility

Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: The paper studies the determinants of international differences in household indebtedness, and inquires whether indebtedness is associated with increased fragility, as measured by the sensitivity of household arrears and insolvencies to macroeconomic shocks. It also investigates whether financial fragility is affected by institutional factors, such as information sharing arrangements, judicial efficiency and individual bankruptcy regulation. We address these issues by tapping three data sets: (i) cross-country data on household indebtedness; (ii) European panel data for household lending and arrears; and (iii) time series data for household lending and insolvencies in the U.K., the U.S.A. and Germany. Overall, the analysis underscores the importance of institutional arrangements in determining the size and fragility of household credit markets.
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1737694656
Cites: 29
Cited by: 169
Related to: 10