Search results for "Household debt"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
Household debt and labor market fluctuations
2011
Abstract The co-movements of labor productivity with output, total hours, vacancies and unemployment have changed since the mid 1980s. This paper offers an explanation for the sharp break in the fluctuations of labor market variables based on endogenous labor supply decisions following the mortgage market deregulation. We set up a search model with efficient bargaining and financial frictions, in which impatient borrowers can take an amount of credit that cannot exceed a proportion of the expected value of their real estate holdings. When borrowers' equity requirements are low, the impact of a positive technology shock on the marginal utility of consumption is strengthened, which in turn re…
Household Debt and Fiscal Multipliers
2015
We study the size of government spending multipliers in a general equilibrium model with search and matching frictions in which we allow for different levels of household indebtedness. The main results of the paper are: (a) the presence of impatient households and private debt helps generate government spending multipliers greater than 1; (b) as financial conditions worsen and impatient consumers find it more difficult to borrow (i.e. in a credit crunch), the size of the government spending multiplier falls; (c) conversely, employment, vacancies and unemployment multipliers are larger when access to credit becomes more difficult; and (d) the model explains the observed pattern of responses …
Instruments, rules, and household debt: the effects of fiscal policy
2015
In this paper, we look at the interplay between the level of household leverage in the economy and fiscal policy, the latter characterised by different combinations of instruments and rules. When the fiscal rule is defined on lump-sum transfers, government spending or consumption taxes, the impact multipliers of transitory fiscal shocks become substantially amplified in an environment of easy access to credit by impatient consumers, regardless of the primary instruments used. However, when the government reacts to debt deviations by raising distortionary taxes on income, labour or capital, the effects of household debt on the size of the impact output multipliers vanish or even reverse, no …