IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/car/carecp/21-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Indebted Demand in a Two Period Consumption-Saving Model

Author

Abstract

We construct a two period consumption-saving model with two agents where rising income inequality leads to declining equilibrium rates of interest, rising debt levels, and lower future aggregate demand. Importantly, our model does not rely on non-homothetic preferences to generate these outcomes. Instead, borrowers face a borrowing constraint which eases when income inequality increases. This feature is supported by the stylized fact that consumer credit and inequality have strongly co-moved and risen in the U.S. since the mid-1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Brault & Hashmat Khan, 2021. "Indebted Demand in a Two Period Consumption-Saving Model," Carleton Economic Papers 21-13, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 05 Jan 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:21-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://carleton.ca/economics/wp-content/uploads/cewp21-13-6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henrik Jensen & Ivan Petrella & Søren Hove Ravn & Emiliano Santoro, 2020. "Leverage and Deepening Business-Cycle Skewness," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 245-281, January.
    2. Michael Kumhof & Romain Rancière & Pablo Winant, 2015. "Inequality, Leverage, and Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1217-1245, March.
    3. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01207208 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Marianna Kudlyak & John Mondragon, 2020. "Greater Inequality and Household Borrowing: New Evidence from Household Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2922-2971.
    5. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    6. Michael Kumhof & Romain Rancière & Pablo Winant, 2015. "Inequality, Leverage, and Crises," Post-Print halshs-01511070, HAL.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Adair Morse, 2016. "Trickle-Down Consumption," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 863-879, December.
    8. Andreas Fagereng & Martin Blomhoff Holm & Benjamin Moll & Gisle Natvik, 2019. "Saving Behavior Across the Wealth Distribution: The Importance of Capital Gains," NBER Working Papers 26588, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Alina Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike Steins, 2025. "The Distribution of Household Debt in the United States, 1950-2022," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 57, July.
    2. Jean‐Noël Barrot & Erik Loualiche & Matthew Plosser & Julien Sauvagnat, 2022. "Import Competition and Household Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3037-3091, December.
    3. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Héricourt & Samuel Ligonnière, 2017. "Structure of Income Inequality and Household Leverage: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence," Working Papers 2017-01, CEPII research center.
    4. Bazillier, Rémi & Héricourt, Jérôme & Ligonnière, Samuel, 2021. "Structure of income inequality and household leverage: Cross-country causal evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    5. Alina Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike Steins, 2025. "The Distribution of Household Debt in the United States, 1950-2022," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 57, July.
    6. Gianluca Benigno & Andrew Foerster & Christopher Otrok & Alessandro Rebucci, 2025. "Estimating macroeconomic models of financial crises: An endogenous regime‐switching approach," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(1), pages 1-47, January.
    7. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    8. Illing, Gerhard & Ono, Yoshiyasu & Schlegl, Matthias, 2018. "Credit booms, debt overhang and secular stagnation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 78-104.
    9. Hashimoto, Ken-ichi & Ono, Yoshiyasu & Schlegl, Matthias, 2023. "Structural unemployment, underemployment, and secular stagnation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    10. Pascal Paul, 2018. "Historical Patterns of Inequality and Productivity around Financial Crises," 2018 Meeting Papers 583, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Bahadir, Berrak & De, Kuhelika & Lastrapes, William D., 2020. "Household debt, consumption and inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    12. Li, Linyang, 2018. "Financial inclusion and poverty: The role of relative income," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 165-191.
    13. Anna Samarina & Anh D.M. Nguyen, 2024. "Does Monetary Policy Affect Income Inequality in the Euro Area?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(1), pages 35-80, February.
    14. Atif Mian & Ludwig Straub & Amir Sufi, 2021. "Indebted Demand," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2243-2307.
    15. Paul Beaudry & Césaire Meh, 2021. "Monetary Policy, Trends in Real Interest Rates and Depressed Demand," Staff Working Papers 21-27, Bank of Canada.
    16. El-Shagi, Makram & Fidrmuc, Jarko & Yamarik, Steven, 2020. "Inequality and credit growth in Russian regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 550-558.
    17. Norman Loayza & Amine Ouazad & Romain Ranciere, 2017. "Financial Development, Growth, and Crisis: Is There a Trade-Off?," Working Papers 114, Peruvian Economic Association.
    18. Pascal Paul, 2023. "Historical Patterns of Inequality and Productivity around Financial Crises," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1641-1665, October.
    19. Menno, Dominik & Oliviero, Tommaso, 2020. "Financial intermediation, house prices, and the welfare effects of the U.S. Great Recession," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Alberto Cardaci & Francesco Saraceno, 2019. "Between Scylla And Charybdis: Income Distribution, Consumer Credit, And Business Cycles," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(2), pages 953-971, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; Borrowing Constraint; Interest rate; Indebted demand;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:car:carecp:21-13. 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: Court Lindsay (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.