The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program
Abstract
The responsiveness of long-term household debt to the interest rate is a crucial parameter for assessing the effectiveness of public policies aimed at promoting specific types of saving. This paper estimates the effect of a reform of Credito Bonificado, a large program in Portugal that subsidized mortgage interest rates, on long-term household debt. The reform established a ceiling in the price of the house that could be financed through the program, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in incentives. Using a unique dataset of matched household survey data and administrative records of debt, we document a large decrease in the probability of signing a new loan after the removal of the subsidy.Download Info
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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number 713.Length:
Date of creation: Oct 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:713
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Web page: http://www.econ.upf.edu/
Related research
Keywords: Consumer borrowing; subsidies; quasi-natural experiment;Other versions of this item:
- Nuno Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2005. "The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: evidence from a large program," DNB Working Papers 026, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
- Nuno C. Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2003. "The Impact of Interest-rate Subsidies on Long-term Household Debt: Evidence from a Large Program," Working Papers w200314, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
- D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
- E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
- H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2004-05-26 (All new papers)
- NEP-EEC-2004-05-16 (European Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Herrala, Risto & Kauko, Karlo, 2007. "Household loan loss risk in Finland – estimations and simulations with micro data," Research Discussion Papers 5/2007, Bank of Finland.
- Nuno Martins & Ernesto Villanueva, 2006. "Does limited access to mortgage debt explain why young adults live with their parents?," Banco de España Working Papers 0628, Banco de España.
- Martins, Nuno C. & Villanueva, Ernesto, 2006. "The impact of mortgage interest-rate subsidies on household borrowing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1601-1623, September.
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