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Debt Overhang and Deleveraging in the US Household Sector: Gauging the Impact on Consumption

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  • Bruno Albuquerque
  • Georgi Krustev

Abstract

Using a novel data set for the U.S. states, this paper examines whether household debt and the protracted debt deleveraging help explain the dismal performance of U.S. consumption since 2007 in the aftermath of the housing bubble. By separating the concepts of deleveraging and debt overhang—a flow and a stock effect—we find that excessive indebtedness exerted a meaningful drag on consumption over and beyond wealth and income effects. The overall effect, however, is modest—†around one sixth of the slowdown in consumption between 2000–06 and 2007–12—and mostly driven by states with particularly large imbalances in their household sector. This might be indicative of non†linearities, whereby indebtedness begins to bite only when misalignments from sustainable debt dynamics become excessive.

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  • Bruno Albuquerque & Georgi Krustev, 2018. "Debt Overhang and Deleveraging in the US Household Sector: Gauging the Impact on Consumption," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 459-481, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:64:y:2018:i:2:p:459-481
    DOI: 10.1111/roiw.12265
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    2. Sala, Hector & Trivín, Pedro, 2022. "Family Finances and Debt Overhang: Evolving Consumption Patterns of Spanish Households," IZA Discussion Papers 15222, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Adél Bosch & Matthew Clance & Steven F. Koch, 2022. "Household debt and consumption dynamics A non-developed world view following the financial crisis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(8), pages 897-917, February.
    4. Gabe Jacob de Bondt & Arne Gieseck & Zivile Zekaite, 2020. "Thick modelling income and wealth effects: a forecast application to euro area private consumption," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 257-286, January.
    5. Bruno Albuquerque, 2024. "Corporate debt booms, financial constraints, and the investment nexus," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 766-789, August.
    6. Bruno Albuquerque & Martin Iseringhausen & Frederic Opitz, 2024. "The Housing Supply Channel of Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2024/023, International Monetary Fund.
    7. O'Brien, Martin & Velasco, Sofia, 2020. "Unobserved components models with stochastic volatility for extracting trends and cycles in credit," Research Technical Papers 09/RT/20, Central Bank of Ireland.
    8. Fiona Price & Benjamin Beckers & Gianni La Cava, 2019. "The Effect of Mortgage Debt on Consumer Spending: Evidence from Household-level Data," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2019-06, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Bruno Albuquerque, 2019. "One Size Fits All? Monetary Policy and Asymmetric Household Debt Cycles in U.S. States," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1309-1353, August.
    10. Philip Caju & Guillaume Périlleux & François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2023. "A bigger house at the cost of an empty stomach? The effect of households’ indebtedness on their consumption: micro-evidence using Belgian HFCS data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 291-333, March.
    11. Jeremy Kronick, 2017. "Spendthrifts and Savers: Are Canadians Acting Like they are “House Poor” or “House Rich”?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 482, June.
    12. de Bondt, Gabe & Gieseck, Arne & Zekaite, Zivile & Herrero, Pablo, 2019. "Disaggregate income and wealth effects in the largest euro area countries," Working Paper Series 2343, European Central Bank.
    13. Du Caju, Philip & Périlleux, Guillaume & Rycx, François & Tojerow, Ilan, 2021. "A Bigger House at the Cost of an Empty Fridge? The Effect of Households' Indebtedness on Their Consumption: Micro-Evidence Using Belgian HFCS Data," IZA Discussion Papers 14193, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Adél Bosch & Matthew W. Clance & Steven F. Koch, 2021. "Household debt and consumption dynamics: A non-developed world view following the ï¬ nancial crisis," Working Papers 868, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    15. Sami Alpanda & Sarah Zubairy, 2019. "Household Debt Overhang and Transmission of Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1265-1307, August.
    16. Apostolos Fasianos & Reamonn Lydon, 2022. "Do households with debt cut back their consumption more? New evidence from the United Kingdom," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 737-760, July.
    17. Robert Fay & Justin-Damien Guénette & Martin Leduc & Louis Morel, 2017. "Why Is Global Business Investment So Weak? Some Insights from Advanced Economies," Bank of Canada Review, Bank of Canada, vol. 2017(Spring), pages 56-67.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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