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The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Unemployment

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  • Kyle F Herkenhoff

Abstract

Unemployed households’ access to unsecured revolving credit more than tripled over the last three decades. This article analyses how both cyclical fluctuations and trend increases in credit access impact the business cycle. The main quantitative result is that credit expansions and contractions have contributed to moderately deeper and more protracted recessions over the last 40 years. As more individuals obtained credit from 1977 to 2010, cyclical credit fluctuations affected a larger share of the population and became more important determinants of employment dynamics. Even though business cycles are more volatile, newborns strictly prefer to live in the economy with growing, but fluctuating, access to credit markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyle F Herkenhoff, 2019. "The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2605-2642.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:86:y:2019:i:6:p:2605-2642.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdz006
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    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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    1. The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Unemployment (REStud 2019) in ReplicationWiki

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