Buy Now, Pay Later loans (BNPL) are an increasingly popular way to finance smallticket purchases. We provide new evidence on how BNPL influences regular bank credit markets, benefiting both lenders and borrowers through information production and learning. Using data from over one million...

Household debt is a critical component of family financial management, especially considering the prevalence of credit constraints. This study investigates the determinants of Chinese household debt structure, focusing on the choice between formal and informal borrowing and the proportion of...

According to the Federal Reserve of the United States, in the second quarter of 2024, American credit card debt reached USD 1.14 trillion, the highest balance ever recorded. In an age of high-interest, complex credit cards, how does financial literacy affect credit card debt repayment? Also, how...

Aggregate consumption typically exceeds 60 per cent of GDP and should be pivotal in central bank policy models. Most use semi-structural macro-models, yet consumption is usually inadequately specified. We use a systems approach to estimate new equations for South African consumption, house...

Household debt plays a crucial role in influencing the performance of the economy and its vulnerability to shocks. This study synthesises studies on this topic. We used the systematic literature review technique to analyse 97 studies from the EBSCO, Google Scholars, Sabinet African Journals,...

Large-scale debt forbearance is a key policy tool during crises, yet targeting is challenging due to information asymmetries. Using transaction-level data from a Portuguese bank during COVID-19, we find that financially fragile households are more likely to enter forbearance, irrespective of...

The paper analyzes the effects of two kinds of college education subsidies: unconditional tuition discounts and targeted forgiveness of student loans on student college enrollment and completion or dropout decisions. We focus on students’ imperfect knowledge of their academic ability at the...

The era of debt, in the context of the Industrial Revolution 4.0, imposes the need to investigate how improvements in public and private debt can be achieved. This paper analyses the impact of the new technologies and political-economic systems on the economy reflected through the public debt of...

Using linked employer-employee data combined with administrative data on debt enforcement, we analyze the impact of job loss on debt problems in Finland, where even 50% of income may be subject to wage garnishment for up to 25 years. Our results show that job loss, defined by plant closures and...

Household indebtedness in Korea has surged persistently during 2003-2022. Low interest rates, coupled with escalating housing prices, are the key drivers of growing household debt. In this context, monetary tightening may play an opposite role to conventional monetary policy. Moreover,...

This study aims to develop nine different consumer bankruptcy forecasting models with the help of three types of artificial neural networks and to verify the usefulness of new, innovative ratios for implementation in personal finance. A learning sample comprising 200 consumers, and a testing...

In this Staff Memo we explore the determinants of unsecured consumer debt among Norwegian households using detailed administrative data from 2020 to 2024. We identify a set of key drivers, including life-cycle patterns, labor market shocks, and homeownership transitions. Our findings reveal that...

We present novel findings on the impact of monetary policy on consumer spending behavior using a newly assembled high-frequency household expenditure panel. Leveraging comprehensive weekly electronic transaction-level data for all individuals in Norway over 13 years, our study sheds light on the...

Over the span of 40 years, a substantial number of conceptual and empirical studies have been conducted on financial vulnerability (henceforth FV). These studies primarily covered socioeconomics, finance, management, and medicine. However, there is a paucity of comprehensive reviews and...

This paper empirically analyses the effect of unemployment on mortgage loan late payments using German household panel data. Regressions with individual fixed effects suggest that for each person who becomes unemployed, the probability of missing a mortgage payment increases by two percentage...