Liquidity versus Wealth in Household Debt Obligations: Evidence from Housing Policy in the Great Recession
利用房贷修改中的差异，区分长期债务减少（财富效应）和短期支付减少（流动性效应）对违约和消费的影响，发现流动性是主要驱动因素。
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.