The distribution of household debt in the United States, 1950-2022
利用新的家庭层面数据，研究了1950年以来美国居民家庭债务的长期增长及其分布变化，发现抵押贷款是主体，1980年后债务增长主要源于借款额增加，其中白人中等收入家庭的房屋净值提取是最大原因，虽未降低净资产但加剧了金融脆弱性。
Using new household-level data, we study the secular increase in U.S. household debt and its distribution since 1950. Most of the debt were mortgages, which initially grew because more households borrowed. Yet after 1980, debt mostly grew because households borrowed more. We uncover home equity extraction, concentrated in the white middle class, as the largest cause, strongly affecting intergenerational inequality and life-cycle debt profiles. Remarkably, the additional debt did not lower households' net worth because of rising house prices. We conclude that asset-price-based borrowing became an integral part of households' consumption-saving decisions, yet at the cost of higher financial fragility.