IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v110y2020i10p3100-3138.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Liquidity versus Wealth in Household Debt Obligations: Evidence from Housing Policy in the Great Recession

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Ganong
  • Pascal Noel

Abstract

We exploit variation in mortgage modifications to disentangle the impact of reducing long-term obligations with no change in short-term payments ("wealth"), and reducing short-term payments with no change in long-term obligations ("liquidity"). Using regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences research designs with administrative data measuring default and consumption, we find that principal reductions that increase wealth without affecting liquidity have no effect, while maturity extensions that increase only liquidity have large effects. This suggests that liquidity drives default and consumption decisions for borrowers in our sample and that distressed debt restructurings can be redesigned with substantial gains to borrowers, lenders, and taxpayers.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Ganong & Pascal Noel, 2020. "Liquidity versus Wealth in Household Debt Obligations: Evidence from Housing Policy in the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3100-3138, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:10:p:3100-3138
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181243
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E118401V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181243.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181243.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20181243?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    2. Gonzalo Maturana, 2017. "When Are Modifications of Securitized Loans Beneficial to Investors?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(11), pages 3824-3857.
    3. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Johannes Stroebel, 2018. "Do Banks Pass through Credit Expansions to Consumers Who want to Borrow?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 129-190.
    4. Kaplan, Greg & Mitman, Kurt & Violante, Giovanni L., 2020. "Non-durable consumption and housing net worth in the Great Recession: Evidence from easily accessible data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    5. Christopher Mayer & Edward Morrison & Tomasz Piskorski & Arpit Gupta, 2014. "Mortgage Modification and Strategic Behavior: Evidence from a Legal Settlement with Countrywide," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2830-2857, September.
    6. James Poterba & Todd Sinai, 2008. "Tax Expenditures for Owner-Occupied Housing: Deductions for Property Taxes and Mortgage Interest and the Exclusion of Imputed Rental Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 84-89, May.
    7. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    8. Neil Bhutta & Jane Dokko & Hui Shan, 2017. "Consumer Ruthlessness and Mortgage Default during the 2007 to 2009 Housing Bust," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(6), pages 2433-2466, December.
    9. Wenli Li & Michelle J. White & Ning Zhu, 2011. "Did Bankruptcy Reform Cause Mortgage Defaults to Rise?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 123-147, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sumit Agarwal & Slava Mikhed & Barry Scholnick & Man Zhang, 2022. "Reducing Strategic Default in a Financial Crisis," Working Papers 21-36, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    2. Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2021. "Debt relief and slow recovery: A decade after Lehman," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1036-1059.
    3. Hertrich Markus, 2019. "A Novel Housing Price Misalignment Indicator for Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 759-794, December.
    4. David Albouy & Andrew Hanson, 2014. "Are Houses Too Big or In the Wrong Place? Tax Benefits to Housing and Inefficiencies in Location and Consumption," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 63-96.
    5. Bolt, Wilko & Demertzis, Maria & Diks, Cees & Hommes, Cars & Leij, Marco van der, 2019. "Identifying booms and busts in house prices under heterogeneous expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 234-259.
    6. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2015. "A Model of Mortgage Default," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(4), pages 1495-1554, August.
    7. Greg Buchak & Gregor Matvos & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2018. "Beyond the Balance Sheet Model of Banking: Implications for Bank Regulation and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 25149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Sheng Guo & William G. Hardin, 2017. "Financial and Housing Wealth, Expenditures and the Dividend to Ownership," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 58-96, January.
    9. John Y. Campbell, 2013. "Mortgage Market Design," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-33.
    10. Peter Ganong & Pascal J. Noel, 2020. "Why Do Borrowers Default on Mortgages?," NBER Working Papers 27585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Brian Jonghwan Lee, 2024. "Bankruptcy Lawyers and Credit Recovery," Working Papers 24-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Andrew Hanson & Hal Martin, 2014. "Housing Market Distortions and the Mortgage Interest Deduction," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(5), pages 582-607, September.
    13. Alin Marius Andries & Anca Copaciu & Radu Popa & Razvan Vlahu, 2021. "Recourse and (strategic) mortgage defaults: Evidence from changes in housing market laws," Working Papers 727, DNB.
    14. Chan, Sewin & Haughwout, Andrew & Tracy, Joseph, 2015. "How Mortgage Finance Affects the Urban Landscape," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 987-1045, Elsevier.
    15. Liepmann, Hannah & Pignatti, Clemente, 2024. "Welfare effects of unemployment benefits when informality is high," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    16. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    17. Sumit Agarwal & Gene Amromin & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Tim Landvoigt & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2015. "Mortgage Refinancing, Consumer Spending, and Competition: Evidence from the Home Affordable Refinancing Program," NBER Working Papers 21512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. James M. Poterba & Todd M. Sinai, 2008. "Income Tax Provisions Affecting Owner-Occupied Housing: Revenue Costs and Incentive Effects," NBER Working Papers 14253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Salvador Barrios & Cecile Denis & Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune & Adriana Reut & Estefania Vazquez Torres, 2019. "Housing taxation: a new database for Europe," JRC Working Papers on Taxation & Structural Reforms 2019-08, Joint Research Centre.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:10:p:3100-3138. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.