Mian, Atif R.; Sufi, Amir - 2021
We show that household leverage as of 2006 is a powerful statistical predictor of the severity of the 2007 to 2009 … recession across U.S. counties. Counties in the U.S. that experienced a large increase in household leverage from 2002 to 2006 … official beginning of the recession in the fourth quarter of 2007. Similarly, counties with the highest reliance on credit card …