IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5653.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Debt Portfolios

Author

Listed:
  • Hintermaier, Thomas

    (University of Bonn)

  • Koeniger, Winfried

    (University of St. Gallen)

Abstract

We provide a model with endogenous portfolios of secured and unsecured household debt. Secured debt is collateralized by owner-occupied housing whereas unsecured debt can be discharged according to bankruptcy regulations. We show that the calibrated model matches important quantitative characteristics of observed wealth and debt portfolios for prime-age consumers in the U.S. We then establish the quantitative result that home equity does not serve as informal collateral for unsecured debt since, as in the data, unsecured debtors hold small amounts of home equity in equilibrium. Thus, observed variations in homestead exemptions, which are an important part of U.S. bankruptcy regulation, have a small effect on the quantity and price of unsecured debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Hintermaier, Thomas & Koeniger, Winfried, 2011. "Debt Portfolios," IZA Discussion Papers 5653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5653
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5653.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven J. Davis & Felix Kubler & Paul Willen, 2006. "Borrowing Costs and the Demand for Equity over the Life Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 348-362, May.
    2. Jesus Fernández-Villaverde & Dirk Krueger, 2007. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: Facts from Consumer Expenditure Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 552-565, August.
    3. Thomas Hintermaier & Winfried Koeniger, 2011. "On the Evolution of the US Consumer Wealth Distribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 317-338, April.
    4. Deaton, Angus, 1991. "Saving and Liquidity Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1221-1248, September.
    5. Edelberg, Wendy, 2006. "Risk-based pricing of interest rates for consumer loans," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2283-2298, November.
    6. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    7. Andrew G. Biggs, 2011. "Social Security: The Story of Its Past and a Vision for Its Future," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 6033, September.
    8. Pavan, Marina, 2008. "Consumer durables and risky borrowing: The effects of bankruptcy protection," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1441-1456, November.
    9. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    10. Kartik Athreya & Xuan S. Tam & Eric R. Young, 2012. "A Quantitative Theory of Information and Unsecured Credit," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 153-183, July.
    11. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    12. Morris A. Davis & Francois Ortalo-Magne, 2011. "Household Expenditures, Wages, Rents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 248-261, April.
    13. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2010. "Winners and Losers in House Markets," Working Papers 2010-5, Central Bank of Cyprus.
    14. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri, 2006. "Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Inequality? Evidence and Theory -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(1), pages 163-193.
    15. Kartik B. Athreya, 2004. "Shame as it ever was : stigma and personal bankruptcy," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 90(Spr), pages 1-19.
    16. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Vincenzo Quadrini & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull & Santiago Budria Rodriguez, 2002. "Updated facts on the U.S. distributions of earnings, income, and wealth," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 26(Sum), pages 2-35.
    17. Charles Grant & Winfried Koeniger, 2009. "Redistributive Taxation and Personal Bankruptcy in U.S. States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 445-467, August.
    18. Daniel Feenberg & Elisabeth Coutts, 1993. "An introduction to the TAXSIM model," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 189-194.
    19. Merxe Tudela & Garry Young, 2005. "The determinants of household debt and balance sheets in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 266, Bank of England.
    20. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Alexander Michaelides & Kalin Nikolov, 2011. "Winners and Losers in Housing Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 255-296, March.
    21. Hintermaier, Thomas & Koeniger, Winfried, 2010. "The method of endogenous gridpoints with occasionally binding constraints among endogenous variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2074-2088, October.
    22. Gervais, Martin, 2002. "Housing taxation and capital accumulation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1461-1489, October.
    23. Caporale, Tony & Grier, Kevin B, 2000. "Political Regime Change and the Real Interest Rate," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 320-334, August.
    24. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah, 1997. "Market Frictions, Savings Behavior, And Portfolio Choice," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 76-101, January.
    25. Mankart, Jochen & Rodano, Giacomo, 2012. "Bankruptcy Law, Debt Portfolios, and Entrepreneurship," Economics Working Paper Series 1216, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    26. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    27. Davis, Morris A. & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2007. "The price and quantity of residential land in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2595-2620, November.
    28. Fang Yang, 2009. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: How Different is Housing?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(3), pages 423-443, July.
    29. repec:aei:rpbook:24949 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2007. "Consumer Bankruptcy: A Fresh Start," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 402-418, March.
    31. David B. Gross, 2002. "An Empirical Analysis of Personal Bankruptcy and Delinquency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 319-347, March.
    32. Malte Krüger, 1998. "Exchange Rate Effects of Portfolio Shifts?," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9807, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    33. Athreya, Kartik, 2006. "Fresh start or head start? Uniform bankruptcy exemptions and welfare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2051-2079, November.
    34. Satyajit Chatterjee & Dean Corbae & Makoto Nakajima & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2007. "A Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer Credit with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1525-1589, November.
    35. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    36. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "How Much Consumption Insurance beyond Self-Insurance?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 53-87, October.
    37. Browning, Martin & Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1985. "A Profitable Approach to Labor Supply and Commodity Demands over the Life-Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 503-543, May.
    38. Rui Yao, 2005. "Optimal Consumption and Portfolio Choices with Risky Housing and Borrowing Constraints," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 197-239.
    39. Athreya, Kartik B., 2002. "Welfare implications of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1999," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 1567-1595, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aaron Hedlund, 2014. "Illiquidity and its Discontents: Trading Delays and Foreclosures in the Housing Market," Working Papers 1417, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    2. Wenli Li & Costas Meghir & Florian Oswald, 2022. "Consumer Bankruptcy, Mortgage Default and Labor Supply," Working Papers 22-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Sá, Ana Isabel, 2020. "To change or not to change: the impact of the law on mortgage origination," MPRA Paper 104818, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mankart, Jochen, 2014. "The (Un-) importance of Chapter 7 wealth exemption levels," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-16.
    5. Solomon, Bernard Daniel, 2010. "Firm leverage, household leverage and the business cycle," MPRA Paper 26504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Igor Livshits & James C. Mac Gee & Michèle Tertilt, 2016. "The Democratization of Credit and the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1673-1710.
    7. Mankart, Jochen & Rodano, Giacomo, 2015. "Personal bankruptcy law, debt portfolios, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 157-172.
    8. Christian Loenser & Joost Röttger & Andreas Schabert, 2022. "Financial Regulation, Interest Rate Responses, and Distributive Effects," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 143, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    9. Patrick Bajari & Phoebe Chan & Dirk Krueger & Daniel Miller, 2013. "A Dynamic Model Of Housing Demand: Estimation And Policy Implications," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(2), pages 409-442, May.
    10. Kurt Mitman, 2016. "Macroeconomic Effects of Bankruptcy and Foreclosure Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2219-2255, August.
    11. Maite Blázquez & Ana I. Moro Egido, 2020. "Financial insecurity and subjective well-being. Europe in crossnational perspective," ThE Papers 20/07, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    12. Pattison, Nathaniel & Millimet, Daniel L., 2023. "A Tale of Two Bankruptcies: Geographic Differences in Bankruptcy Chapter Choice," IZA Discussion Papers 16105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Sá, Ana Isabel, 2023. "Recourse restrictions and judicial foreclosures: Effects of mortgage law on loan price and collateralization," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    14. Aaron Hedlund, 2014. "The Cyclical Dynamics of Illiquid Housing, Debt, and Foreclosures," Working Papers 1416, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    15. Pham-Dao, Lien, 2016. "Public Insurance and Wealth Inequality - A Euro Area Analysis," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145942, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Johannes Fleck & Chima Simpson-Bell, 2019. "Public Insurance in Heterogeneous Fiscal Federations: Evidence from American Households," 2019 Meeting Papers 296, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Pattison, Nathaniel, 2020. "Consumption smoothing and debtor protections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    18. Wenli Li & Costas Meghir & Florian Oswald, 2022. "Consumer Bankruptcy, Mortgage Default and Labor Supply," Working Papers 22-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    19. Aloisio Araujo & J. Mauricio Villalba, 2022. "Equilibrium efficiency with secured and unsecured assets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 1025-1049, June.

    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. Thomas Hintermaier & Winfried Koeniger, 2016. "Debt Portfolios and Homestead Exemptions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 103-141, October.
    2. Winfried Koeniger & Thomas Hintermaier, 2009. "Bankruptcy and Debt Portfolios," 2009 Meeting Papers 348, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Igor Livshits, 2015. "Recent Developments In Consumer Credit And Default Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 594-613, September.
    4. Thomas Hintermaier & Winfried Koeniger, 2011. "On the Evolution of the US Consumer Wealth Distribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 317-338, April.
    5. Mankart, Jochen, 2014. "The (Un-) importance of Chapter 7 wealth exemption levels," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-16.
    6. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 319-354, May.
    7. Chatterjee, Satyajit & Gordon, Grey, 2012. "Dealing with consumer default: Bankruptcy vs garnishment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(S), pages 1-16.
    8. Akyol, Ahmet & Athreya, Kartik, 2011. "Credit and self-employment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 363-385, March.
    9. Bulent Guler, 2015. "Innovations in Information Technology and the Mortgage Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 456-483, July.
    10. Athreya, Kartik & Tam, Xuan S. & Young, Eric R., 2009. "Unsecured credit markets are not insurance markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 83-103, January.
    11. Jonathan Halket & Santhanagopalan Vasudev, 2014. "Saving Up or Settling Down: Home Ownership over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 345-366, April.
    12. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Accounting for the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 165-193, April.
    13. Athreya, Kartik, 2006. "Fresh start or head start? Uniform bankruptcy exemptions and welfare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2051-2079, November.
    14. Mankart, Jochen & Rodano, Giacomo, 2015. "Personal bankruptcy law, debt portfolios, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 157-172.
    15. Hintermaier, Thomas & Koeniger, Winfried, 2010. "The method of endogenous gridpoints with occasionally binding constraints among endogenous variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2074-2088, October.
    16. Wenli Li & Haiyong Liu & Fang Yang & Rui Yao, 2016. "Housing Over Time And Over The Life Cycle: A Structural Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1237-1260, November.
    17. Irina A. Telyukova, 2013. "Household Need for Liquidity and the Credit Card Debt Puzzle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 1148-1177.
    18. repec:esx:essedp:712 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Kartik Athreya & Xuan S. Tam & Eric R. Young, 2012. "A Quantitative Theory of Information and Unsecured Credit," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 153-183, July.
    20. Athreya, Kartik B., 2008. "Default, insurance, and debt over the life-cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 752-774, May.
    21. Gajendran Raveendranathan & Georgios Stefanidis, 2020. "The Unprecedented Fall in U.S. Revolving Credit," Department of Economics Working Papers 2020-05, McMaster University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    commitment; bankruptcy; collateral; housing; household debt portfolios; income risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:iza:izadps:dp5653. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.