Household indebtedness has grown sharply in the United Kingdom in recent years. This paper proposes a framework for understanding this based on a model in which households are assumed to plan their lifetime spending rationally, allowing for bequests to future generations. The model is set up to...

Since the mid-1990s the volume of secured lending to households has expanded rapidly, both in absolute terms and in relation to household incomes. This paper examines the determinants of households' ability to service this stock of secured debt. It estimates a random effects probit model for the...