PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Household credit is an ever-expanding part of modern financial systems with immediate real effects. This thesis addresses the consequences of regulatory measures on household credit markets. In Chapters 1 and 2, the personal bankruptcy institution of the type found in the United States is studied from a theoretical perspective. In the first chapter, personal bankruptcy is shown to imply efficiency of government debt as a tool for redistributing resources between generations. In the second chapter, personal bankruptcy is found to cause long-run macroeconomic instability only if it is associated with asset bubbles. Chapter 3 studies interest rate restriction policy from an empirical point of view, using administrative data on housing loans in France. This regulation is found to cause a shift in the supply of credit towards short-term loans.