This paper uses loan-level data from the residential mortgage books of four Irish credit institutions, as at December 2010. The focus of the paper, is to provide an overview of the structure and condition of these housing loan books. This includes a description of borrower categories, interest...

The interrelationship between house prices and mortgage credit has been one of the more compelling issues to warrant attention after the recent financial crisis. Considerable financial innovation and liberalisation of wholesale international funding markets over the past 20 years greatly...

Understanding the true scale of the difficulties in the Irish mortgage market is of key importance from a financial stability, fiscal and social perspective. To date, much of the analysis and discussion of the Irish market has tended to focus on either the concept of mortgage repayment distress...

The rapid increase in credit in an economy is now commonly perceived to be one of the leading in- dicators of financial instability. This view has been reinforced by the aftermath of the international financial crisis, which commenced in mid-2007. A key policy response has been to focus on the...

This paper examines the recent slowdown in bank lending that has affected several large OECD countries. The analysis begins with a description of the importance of bank credit in the financial systems of the countries considered. The origins of the lending slowdown are analysed - - including the...