The authors use microdata from the 1999 and 2005 Surveys of Financial Security to identify changes in household debt, and discuss their potential implications for monetary policy and financial stability. They document an increase in the debt-income ratio, which rose from 0.75 to 0.95, on...

This paper formulates a back of the envelope approach to study the effects of monetary policy on household consumption expenditures. We analyze several transmission mechanisms operating through direct, partial equilibrium channels--intertemporal substitution and net interest rate exposure--and...

1. Theoretical Economics and the Family -- 2. Empirical Economics and the Family -- 3. Money Production and Cantillon Effects -- 4. Monetary Policy and the Emergence of the Inflation Culture -- 5. Empirics on Inflationary Institutions and Habits on Family Life -- 6. The Econometrics of Monetary...