Work

Household Debt: Facts, Puzzles, Theories, and Policies

Year: 2015

Type: review

Abstract: Borrowing decisions affect most households, with large stakes and implications for subfields as varied as macroeconomics and industrial organization. I review theoretical and empirical work on household debt: its prevalence, level, growth, and composition, as well as various measures of consumer choice and market (in)efficiency, elasticities, and prices, including new evidence on how borrowing heterogeneity affects the distribution of the opportunity cost of consumption. I also discuss opportunities and challenges in policy evaluation. A key takeaway is that puzzles outstrip stylized facts, and I highlight numerous avenues for further research.

Source: Annual Review of Economics

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-economics-080614-115640

Author: Jonathan Zinman

Institutions: Dartmouth College, Innovations for Poverty Action, National Bureau of Economic Research, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

Language: English

Topic: Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W3124893980

FWCI: 4.803

Cites: 200

Cited by: 199

Related to: 10